Shattered
by fyd818
Summary: RononTeyla, SheppardWeir. AU, sequel to "Journey to Forever." He remembered the past and held on to that, for he knew it was only through sheer determination that they would win. .:On Hiatus:.
1. Danger

Disclaimer: I don't own "Stargate: Atlantis." I am in no way trying to make a profit off this story, I am merely writing it and posting for my and other people's enjoyment.

Synopsis: RononTeyla, SheppardWeir. AU, sequel to "Journey to Forever." He remembered the past and held on to that, for he knew it was only through sheer determination that they would win.

Rating: T

Warnings: Violence, kissing

Pairings: Ronon/Teyla, John/Elizabeth

Spoilers: "Rising," "Siege" (pts. 1, 2, & 3"), "Runner," & "Sateda"

Title: _Shattered_

Author: fyd818

Part 1/?

**Dedication**: To all who supported me through "Journey to Forever," and who encouraged (and poked) me into doing a sequel. You all know who you are, and thank you so much!

**Special thanks**: To **SpaceMonkey0941** (go read her stuff, she's awesome!), for her help, support, friendship, and awesome shippy fics; and to **Mama Jo**, my fantabulous beta, for helping me wrestle this monster into a controllable form. (lol)

Author's notes: Six months later. . . I have been a very bad girl. _Six months_ after my last update, I'm _finally_ back – and with a new and (hopefully you'll think) improved version of "Shattered"! **Chapter one didn't change, but starting with chapter two it starts getting a little different.** It's got twice the angst and twice the romance, and I'm quite happy now with how it's turning out. Before, I started "Shattered" too soon and without fully thinking out where I wanted this sequel to go. Then I was forced to pay dearly for my decision, by having the story finally stall in a place where I hadn't wanted it to wind up. So I have spent the past six slow, agonizing months re-writing and re-writing until I came up with this – the same story is there, it's just better (I hope). Thank you so much for being patient with me, and I hope you enjoy "Shattered"! Please drop me a line and tell me what you think!

_**Shattered**_

_fyd818_

**-Chapter 1-**

_Danger_

Afternoon sunlight glimmered on the ocean's surface as Jumper Seven left Atlantis, outbound for the mainland and the Athosian settlement there. The pilot, a young Marine lieutenant named Ken Johnson, kept up a steady flow of chatter as he skillfully guided the Jumper across the expanse of blue water separating the Ancient city from Teyla's people.

Ronon Dex sat quietly in one of the jump seats of the small ship, content to listen to Johnson and his soon-to-be bride, Teyla Emmagan, carry on a conversation. He let his mind wander a bit, feeling more relaxed and happy than he could remember feeling in years – maybe in his whole life. Though it had taken more than a year, and a lot of sessions with Doctor Heightmeyer, Teyla was finally past the nightmares enough to be able to marry him: nightmares tied to the death of his future self in her arms, and to her deepest fears of having that loss repeated with him.

Well, having lost his first wife in a Wraith attack on his homeworld of Sateda, he'd had a few issues himself over the risk of losing Teyla – issues he'd politely but firmly declined to discuss with Heightmeyer. He'd talked about it with his team leader, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, a time or two, very late at night when such conversations just naturally seemed to happen. And he had, of course, talked about it with Teyla. That had been enough for him.

"So, I hear there's a wedding on the mainland in a couple of weeks. Would that be you two?" That was the first direct question Ronon heard about the wedding. He grinned quietly as he listened to Teyla's answer.

"Yes." He caught the merest glimmer of her smile as she turned her head for a quick glance back at him. "Ronon and I are going over to the mainland to prepare. The rest of the wedding party will come over from Atlantis when it is almost time." She disclosed no more details about the preparations for the wedding. The Athosians were quite reticent about the rituals to be performed for the binding of two hearts. All involved in the actual wedding itself had to take a vow of silence before even being told their parts, and how to prepare for them.

It was a complicated process, one of the many reasons why Ronon and Teyla were headed over to the mainland.

The Jumper wobbled slightly on its steady course. Ronon reflexively straightened, grasping the arms of his seat and wondering if perhaps Lieutenant Johnson's lack of experience flying jumpers had caused it. But when the little ship yanked sharply to the left, nearly throwing all of them from their seats, he realized it was not the Marine's lack of skill causing the problem. Something was wrong with the jumper itself.

Johnson's rigid shoulders showed how hard he was struggling with the controls. "What the. . .?" Ronon could hear the bewilderment and disbelief in the young pilot's voice.

Teyla reached across the center console to grab the lieutenant's sleeve. "Lieutenant, we need you to land this jumper." Her voice had all the quiet authority she'd gained in her years as the Athosian leader. "You have the Ancient gene. There must be something you can do to slow our descent. You must focus and concentrate on that!"

Johnson took a deep breath, visibly centering himself. "Hang on!" he said, voice tight with the effort he was making. "Like it or not, we are comin' in for a landing!"

Teyla straightened in her seat, bracing for the impact to come. Ronon watched the water draw closer beneath them as they rapidly lost altitude, and did the same. By now the coast of the mainland was in sight. Ronon knew the Athosian settlement was a good day's walk away from the coast, farther into the mountain range where the hunting was better. The ship seemed to be holding a steadier course now. If Johnson could manage to land the jumper safely, they could easily walk up to the settlement. . .

Jumper Seven lurched again, this time listing crazily to the side. Ronon nearly tumbled out of his seat. He barely had time to wonder what had happened to the inertial dampeners before Johnson yelled, "Brace for impact!"

They hit the water only a couple of hundred feet from the shoreline. The right-side drive pod touched first, skipped up, grabbed again. The jumper twisted sideways. Its momentum sent them barrel-rolling across the water onto the sand, tossing the occupants about like helpless rag dolls.

Ronon grunted as his head, right shoulder, and hip impacted different parts of the jumper's ceiling and interior especially hard. Stunned, he tumbled back to the floor as the ship finally tilted back into its right-side-up position, settling there with a creaky groan of battered metal.

Shattered glass crunched beneath him as he tried dazedly to raise himself. _Teyla, the pilot— _The world about him spun sickeningly, making him squeeze his eyes shut. He hoarsely whispered Teyla's and Johnson's names before dropping back down to the floor of the jumper. It hurt way too much for him to sustain the effort any longer.

Ronon tried again to call Teyla and Lieutenant Johnson. His blood chilled when he heard no response. He tried to raise just his head enough to get his bearings within the ship and find them, but couldn't do it.

He only had time to think, _We were sabotaged. . ._ before he lost his battle to hang on to consciousness.

_-To Be Continued-_


	2. Darkness

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 2/?

**-Chapter 2-**

_Darkness_

"Elizabeth, I'm telling you, it's a conspiracy! The entire galaxy is out to get me, or at least make my life very difficult! Everyone is borrowing my equipment without asking, never putting it back where it belongs, and – and – I'm sick and tired of it! Can't you have a talk with them and tell them to respect my workspace?"

Doctor Elizabeth Weir patiently listened to her chief scientist's tirade, trying to hold back her amusement at the way he practically hopped around her office. He looked as furious as he sounded—not an uncommon occurrence in Atlantis—and she surreptitiously moved some of the more fragile items on her desk a little further away from the edge, just in case.

"And, on top of that, you want to know what Doctor Williams said? He said I don't even know what I'm doing! And how long has he been on Atlantis? Three months! How long have I been here? Over _four_ years! Perhaps a little bit of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, eh?" With this dramatic finish, Rodney McKay stopped in front of her desk, red-faced, and waited for her to say something.

Elizabeth took a moment to make sure she was suitably composed. Careful to keep her expression neutral, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the surface of her desk. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do about this, Rodney."

He looked startled. "You're the leader of this expedition, the diplomat, the – the peacemaker! Elizabeth, please, you have to help me! I can't get anything done as long as things are missing, and I have to go chasing the person who has them all over the city _after_ finally tracking down who borrowed what!"

She was accustomed by now to Rodney's spells where he would go off on one or many of his fellow scientists. But why was it that she often felt like a frazzled mother trying to run a very large, unorganized household instead of a well-ordered scientific expedition? Soothingly, she said, "Just ask them please to let you know before they borrow things. Or failing that, tell them to leave you a note when they do. And then ask them _nicely_ to put things back exactly where they borrowed them from."

"What about. . .oh. That even takes care of when I'm off-world!" Rodney's eyes brightened just a bit. "Aha, thank you, Elizabeth. Now if everyone else can just understand the concept. . ." He was already walking off across the short bridge leading from her office to the control room as he spoke the last. As his voice faded away she finally allowed herself a smile.

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, the expedition's military commander as well as the leader of Atlantis's flagship team, entered through the door on the other side of her office. He saw the smile on her face and, "What's so funny?" he questioned, perching on the edge of her desk.

"Rodney." Elizabeth turned to her laptop and resumed work on the next month's provisional duty roster. "He just came to me complaining about his fellow scientists."

"He not playing nice with the other kids again?" John questioned, arching one eyebrow curiously. Apparently he followed her train of thought, and considered himself the other head of the Atlantian household. "What happened this time?"

Elizabeth hit the save button, She turned back to her husband, at the same time picking up and cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. "He claims everyone is taking things from his lab and putting them back in the wrong places, or not bringing them back at all. I just told him to ask the others nicely if they could let him know when they borrowed something and then put it back when finished."

John reached across the desk and plucked the mug from her hands He took a long drink before handing it back, empty. At her glare, he shrugged. "What? I'm sleepy. Besides, I thought Beckett told you that you weren't supposed to have coffee."

Elizabeth winced. "I know what he said. But it was just one cup. . ." At his look, she sighed and gave it up. "There goes my stress level for the rest of the day."

John came around the desk to kiss her. "Only two more months, 'Lizabeth. Then you can have coffee again. I think."

Elizabeth rested her hands on the swell of her stomach where their child rested and grew. "A little less than two months. Right. I can make it." She smiled, then sighed and closed her eyes. "Okay, I need some Athosian tea. Don't they have a brew for stress?"

John cocked his head to the side. "I think so. But if you're feeling stressed, maybe you should. . ."

She held up her hand. "I am not taking another day off. Now I can finally work again, I'm not taking a day off until this little one decides she's ready to be. . ." She was interrupted when one of the Gate technicians, Chuck, stuck his head in the door.

"Doctor Weir, Colonel Sheppard," he said, a concerned look in his eyes. "There's something wrong in one of the labs."

_**-Mainland-**_

Ronon slowly lifted his head and squinted his eyes open the merest crack. His blurred surroundings tilted unsteadily, making him have to swallow hard against the bitter taste at the back of his throat. The jumper had, at least, landed right-side-up. Through the gaping hole up front where the wide port had been, he saw that the sun was halfway down the sky towards the horizon. So, he thought muzzily, he hadn't been out for long.

Slowly the memory of what had happened came back to him. _Teyla! Johnson!_ He groaned and slowly sat up, wincing as shattered pieces of control crystals and larger

chunks of the windshield pressed against his hands. His right arm nearly gave under him as pain shot through his shoulder. Instinctively drawing it up to protect it, he gritted his teeth in determination. Pushing with his left arm and both legs, he heaved over onto his knees, closed his eyes to shut out the world's spinning, and crawled toward the nearest remembered support. Grabbing the doorframe between the cockpit and the rear bay, he pulled himself erect on aching, unsteady legs. His forehead felt strange, slick and sticky at the same time. He ran his forearm across it, then stared blankly at his sleeve. _Blood. Doesn't matter. Gotta move, gotta find Teyla—_

He took one unsteady step toward the front of the jumper, another. His foot caught on something, nearly pitching him forward. He looked down. Johnson lay sprawled between the pilot's seat and the one directly behind it, legs protruding into the center aisle. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, his eyes open and staring. Steadying himself with a hand on the passenger seat, Ronon carefully stooped and placed the fingers of his left hand against the young Marine's neck, knowing already he would find no pulse. Drawing his hand over the dead eyes, he gently closed them with a murmured, "Thank you, Lieutenant." He knew the crash could have been much worse. The young man's determined piloting had at least kept them aloft long enough to reach the mainland, buying them a chance for survival.

Straightening, Ronon turned his head to the side, eyes searching for Teyla. His heart began pounding erratically when he didn't see her. Had she been thrown from the jumper during its wild tumble? Was her body even now floating somewhere out at sea? No, no, he wouldn't accept that. She _had_ to be here!

"Teyla!" Her name tore out of him as he staggered to the copilot's seat, swiping at his eyes with a hand in an effort to clear his vision. She had to be here, _she _had _to be here!_

She was, her slight body wedged into the knee space under the copilot's controls. His gut twisted in dread when he finally saw her. Blood covered the side of her face visible to him, oozing sluggishly from a gash on her forehead. She looked so still, so pale. . . 

"Teyla!" _Please don't take her away from me, I can't live without her. . ._ He dropped to his knees so quickly he nearly blacked out again. Hanging on to consciousness by pure will, he pushed her blood-matted hair away from her neck with shaking fingers to check for her pulse. For a long moment he was unsure if what he felt was actually her pulse, or only what he hoped to feel. But there it was again, and he could have wept in relief: her pulse, faint and fast, throbbing against his fingers.

Moving awkwardly, partly because of the tight confines, partly because of his own injuries, he reached out to put his arms around her slender form. Pain shot from his right collarbone again, but he ignored it. "Teyla?" He started to draw her gently to him.

Three things happened simultaneously: Ronon felt a resistance, as if something were holding her back; Teyla's body shuddered in agony; and a faint gasping cry passed her lips.

Instantly withdrawing his arms, Ronon leaned closer and squinted, trying to see what could possibly be holding her in place. _No good, too dark. Need light._ Yet again he made the effort to stand. Stepping carefully over Johnson's legs, he made his way to the back part of the jumper. Fortunately, most of the fastenings on the equipment nets along the bulkheads over the benches had held. He located a flashlight, returned as quickly as he could to kneel again by Teyla. Switching on the light, he winced briefly at the brightness before moving it methodically around, looking, looking—

_There!_ His heart clenched and his breath hissed between his teeth as he leaned in for a closer look. _Oh, Ancestors, no!_ Some kind of clear, thin yet rigid conduit running from the underside of the control panel had partly ripped free during the crash. The lower end was still attached to the jumper. The other held Teyla impaled, piercing like a spear between her ribs about four fingers' width below and a little to the side of her right breast.

Since he was no longer trying to move her, she had gone limp again. The light allowed him to see, though, the effort it cost her to breathe. "Teyla, just please hang on!" He didn't know if she could hear him or not as he withdrew head and shoulders from the knee space. Still kneeling, he twisted his upper body and reached for the controls. As close to complete panic as he'd ever been, he picked out the one for communications and slammed his hand down on it. "Atlantis, this is Ronon, we need help!"

The control flickered once, spit static, went dark.

"No!" Ronon thumped his fist on the console and tried again. "Atlantis, this is Jumper Seven, can you hear me?"

Nothing, not even static.

_Think, Ronon, think!_ His left hand groped over his head; no headset, must've torn loose and disappeared in the crash. Teyla hadn't been wearing one, but Johnson had. He pivoted on his knees, bracing his right elbow on the pilot's seat, reaching with his left hand for the pilot's body. He forced himself not to rip it away, but to remove it carefully, with respect for the young man's sacrifice.

It didn't work either.

Ronon closed his eyes, trying to fight back the despair rising into his throat from deep in his belly. The Athosian settlement was on the other side of the mountain; many long miles of ocean separated them from Atlantis; and Teyla—

He couldn't deny the stark truth. Teyla had a punctured lung along with he didn't know what other injuries. She needed medical assistance in the worst possible way. But he couldn't move her. The thin conduit violating her body also held her immobile.

Panic threatened to overwhelm him. One thought pierced through all the others in his scrambled brain:

_Now what do I do?_

_-To Be Continued-_


	3. Despair

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 3/?

**-Chapter 3-**

_Despair_

For a time probably not as long as it seemed, Ronon slumped between the jumper's front seats, his throbbing head pillowed on his equally sore arm. Despair deeper and thicker than any he'd felt in all his years as a Runner dragged at heart and mind and will. _ Give it up, Ronon,_ it seemed to whisper. _You aren't meant to be happy, you bring a blight to everyone you get close to. Teyla isn't even meant to be alive. Just give up and let there be an end to it all._

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the stubborn toughness at Ronon's core began to reassert itself. He'd never quit fighting when he'd been a Runner; he wouldn't quit fighting now, especially not with Teyla's life at stake. It was simple, really, he told himself, if he just took it one step at a time. Free Teyla. Get her to the Athosian settlement. Contact Atlantis.

Find the son who'd sabotaged the jumper and kill him.

Ronon felt the long-familiar fire of determination reignite in his soul. As he lifted his head again, he unconsciously bared his teeth. "Yeah," he muttered, "I can do that. But first things first."

He turned back towards Teyla and focused the flashlight on her again, carefully examining every detail of her situation. He knew enough battlefield medicine to realize the slender column piercing her lung had to stay in place for now, despite the agony it caused her. Without it to plug the hole it made, her lung would collapse and she would die. So, he had to find a way to detach it from the jumper.

Very carefully taking hold of it with his left hand, he cautiously exerted pressure with his thumb, testing its breakability. It didn't even offer to give. Releasing it, he sat back on his heels, absently rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.

He didn't have his blaster. Teyla's voice sounded through his memory, half-amused, half-exasperated: _"Ronon, you cannot take a weapon to the preparations for our wedding ceremony! It would – it would not be auspicious."_ He measured the exposed length again by eye, and reluctantly concluded it wouldn't have done him any good anyway, since the energy gun lacked anything resembling a narrow beam setting.

A nine-mil, though. . . That might work. He levered up onto his feet and crunched his way to the rear compartment. Using mostly his left arm, he manhandled the munitions case down from its restraining net, all but dropping it onto the bench below. Wrenching it open, he grabbed one of the handguns packed within, seized an ammo clip and rammed it home. He chambered a round. Not daring to think too much about what had to happen next, he returned to kneel again by Teyla.

Ronon took an instant to use some of his dreadlocks to tie the rest back out of his face before very carefully inserting his head and broad shoulders into the small space where Teyla lay trapped. Holding the gun in his left hand, he positioned the muzzle just above where the crystalline conduit met the deck, holding it there with an iron grip. Gently, he put his right arm around her, shielding her with his body.

"I'm sorry, love," he whispered, and pulled the trigger.

He'd expected the sound from a gunshot in such a confined area to be deafening; he hadn't expected the effect it would have on his concussed brain. Pain exploded inside his head, a throbbing beat that tried to hammer him down into the dark. He couldn't hear Teyla's faint, gasping scream through the roaring in his ears, but he did feel her body shudder convulsively against his; and that alone kept him from passing out completely. Had he done more harm than good? Fearfully, he shifted his right hand, seeking the pulse point on her neck, and held his breath.

Fast, very fast, _scary_ fast – but there. Exhaling in relief, he held her a little closer for a moment and rested his cheek against the back of her head.

He wanted so badly not to have to move, but he forced his head to lift and turn. With a groan, he laid aside the gun and reached for the flashlight. It took four tries before he could focus his eyes well enough to see that he'd succeeded in shattering the conduit's connection to the jumper. His lips pursed in a soundless whistle when he saw the damage the shot had caused to the panel behind it.

Oh, well, step one accomplished. He could move Teyla and get her out of the jumper now.

It wasn't that simple, though. Despite all his care, occasionally the protruding length of the column would bump against something. When that happened, Teyla's shallow breathing would hitch and nearly stop. By the time Ronon got her out of the knee space, he was sweating and shaking. Cradling her on his lap, he snatched a few moments' rest. But only a few – the reddening of the light coming through the front of the jumper warned him sunset was not far off.

Getting to his feet, Ronon briefly balanced Teyla on the DHD console, steadying her with his right arm as he reached for the hatch control with his left. He gathered her up again, stepping very cautiously so as not to jar her unnecessarily. He headed for the rear of the jumper; halted in shock just past the dividing doorway.

The hatch wasn't lowering.

A Satedan expletive exploded from his lips. Three angry strides brought him to it, close enough to hear the whining noise the controlling mechanism was making. He swore again. Either the jumper had skidded up against something that wouldn't allow the hatch to open, or the crash had twisted the ship's frame enough to jam it.

A burst of anger-fueled adrenaline kicked through Ronon. Carefully laying Teyla down on one of the benches, he turned back to the hatch. Bracing his legs, he positioned his hands on the cold metal, and threw all his weight and formidable strength against it.

Five seconds passed, ten, then thirty. Grimacing with pain, muscles trembling and burning, Ronon refused to slacken his effort. A growl built deep inside him, a pressure that would not be denied: the berserker who shrugged off all pain and accepted no defeat. Forty-five seconds, a minute. The hatch was going to open, he was going to _make_ it open if he had to burst every blood vessel in his body doing it—

The growl roared out of him. All his muscles knotted and bunched in one final, massive heave. Metal screeched on metal. The hatch jerked and then began to lower smoothly. Ronon tried to push back from it, but his exhausted body wouldn't respond. As the hatch continue to sink beneath him, he got the surreal impression that it was carrying him down into darkness.

He blacked out.

_**-Mainland-**_

Cool air moving across his sweat-drenched body brought Ronon back to awareness. Reluctantly cracking his eyes open, he felt a jolt of alarm as he realized how close twilight was to falling. He pushed unsteadily to his feet. Something else was nagging at him, too. He turned in a slow circle, scanning his surroundings for a cause for his uneasiness; saw nothing to account for it—

—Froze as he realized the source lay in what he was hearing: the soft suck and slap of water against the jumper's hull, a sound that hadn't been present earlier. The tide was coming in.

The realization galvanized Ronon into action. If the approaching nightfall constituted a major nuisance, the incoming tide represented a major danger. Once again he pushed aside his own physical issues in concern for his love. Hurrying into the ship, he lifted Teyla in aching arms. He carried her well above the high-water mark before gently lowering her onto the still warm sand of the beach.

Feeling the pressure of two ticking clocks, he made several trips to the jumper, clearing out all the supplies and equipment, and stacking them near where Teyla lay. Less than half the sun remained above the horizon when he made one final trip to recover Johnson's body. By that time, the water was ankle-deep inside the jumper, and the ship was starting to make an occasional queasy rocking motion. Ronon got out of there as quickly as he could.

A rocky, irregular drop-off separated the beach from the wooded ground rising inland, its foot strewn with boulders of varying sizes. Ronon lowered the Marine's body behind one of these and covered it with the blanket he'd snatched up for that purpose. "I'll do better for you in the morning," he promised in a low voice. "But right now Teyla needs me."

He was able to gather ample wood for a fire without having to go very far from Teyla's resting place, although he finished the job by flashlight. Once he had a good, big blaze going, he sorted out the medical supplies he needed from the pile of stuff he'd salvaged from the jumper; drew a deep, steadying breath; and turned his attention to dealing with her injuries.

She'd bled relatively little externally from the puncture. He hoped that was equally true internally. The protruding piece of conduit was about the length of his hand from longest fingertip to wrist and, as he knew, totally inflexible. How could he possibly protect it from getting jarred and causing more damage inside her lung every time he had to move her?

Eventually, he saw only one way. Tucking the narrowest part of her right forearm under the shattered end to provide support, he very, very carefully wrapped bandages around her, binding her arm to her body and covering as much as he could of the exposed crystal shaft. Exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, he carefully eased her back down against the improvised support of a rolled up sleeping bag.

Turning next to the gash on her forehead, Ronon ripped open a packet of cleansing wipes and gently began washing the crusted blood from her face. He soon saw the cut wasn't as bad as he thought it might be – probably wouldn't even leave a scar – so he simply applied antibiotic ointment and affixed a square self-adhesive bandage over it. That done, he took a moment to throw more wood onto the fire. In the renewed light, he examined her for any other injuries he might have missed earlier. He found darkening bruises, a few minor scrapes, but thankfully nothing else major. Shaking out another salvaged blanket, he draped it over her and tucked it around her with tender hands.

With Teyla cared for and resting as comfortably as he could contrive, Ronon dealt with his own hurts. He already knew he had a mild concussion and a scalp wound. Now he ran exploring fingers over his right collarbone, which continued to protest viciously any use of that arm. Not broken, he didn't think. His fingers found an especially tender place and he hissed in pain. Well, maybe not _completely_ broken, but definitely badly cracked. Elsewhere he was battered, with many deep muscle bruises, but basically okay. Taking a leftover wipe, he scrubbed the dried blood from his forehead.

A slight brushing sound spun him on his haunches toward Teyla. Her eyes were fluttering open and closed, her head moving restlessly on the sleeping bag. Leaning quickly over her, he rested his left hand gently on her shoulder and tenderly stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Teyla. Don't move, just stay still."

She quieted under his touch. Her lips soundlessly shaped his name, then the word, _What?_

"The jumper crashed. You got banged up pretty badly, but you're going to be okay." Ronon wouldn't let himself sound as if he believed anything else. Her forehead furrowed; he could see her gathering herself to try to speak. To forestall her effort, he gave her a little more of the truth. "Lieutenant Johnson got us close enough to the mainland to skid onto the beach when we hit. Now you need to rest some more," he bent to brush his lips across hers, "my almost-wife."

Her eyes half-opened, glittering in the firelight, and focused on his face with a knowing look. He sighed and gave her more truth. "One of your lungs isn't working so good. Love, you really need to lie still and not try to talk. I'm sorry I can't give you anything for the pain right now. I just don't know how safe it would be. Please, for my sake, try to rest."

"You—" It was the merest thread of sound. "'Kay?"

He felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. "I'm in a lot better shape than you. A bump on the head and a cracked collarbone, assorted bruises."

Her lips curved slightly in a smile, shaped another word. "Johnson?"

Oh, he hadn't wanted her to ask that. He felt his smile fade. "Didn't make it." Without trying to hide his own regret and sorrow, he took her face between his hands. "Please, Teyla, no more for now. We both gotta rest."

She looked straight into his eyes and nodded before letting her eyelids droop shut. He pressed a kiss on her forehead and straightened, feeling as if his heart would break with love of her. Stifling another sigh, he threw a piece of wood on the fire and fixed his brooding gaze on the darkness beyond.

It was going to be a long night.

_-To Be Continued-_


	4. Intuition

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 4/?

**-Chapter 4-**

_Intuition_

John and Elizabeth followed Chuck back out into the control room. "What's going on, Sergeant?" Sheppard demanded, snapping instantly into military mode.

The Gate technician returned quickly to his station and called up a scan of the city on his computer. "We think one of the Wraith devices recovered from the crashed Darts just caused an explosion in the main lab. Not a big explosion from initial reports, and fortunately there was no one around at the time, but there has been some damage. We've already got people on the way."

Elizabeth looked equally concerned and surprised. "We've had that Wraith technology for over a year! What caused it to explode now?"

Sheppard was already heading for the staircase leading down to the Gateroom. "Don't know yet," he called back over his shoulder, "but you can bet Rodney and Radek are on their way there. I'll let you know as soon as we find something."

An acrid haze of smoke hung in the hallway leading to the main lab area of the Atlantis expedition. As he'd expected, McKay and Zelenka had already arrived. Both men wore matching expressions of mixed irritation and fury on their faces. Also as expected, McKay sounded off before Sheppard could speak.

"There you are, finally." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the SFs guarding the lab's door, his pale blue-grey eyes seeming to protrude more than normally. "Sheppard, will you tell your Space Marines to let us past so we can check on the damage in there?"

"I've got a better idea." John pinned the Canadian scientist with a look designed to get his attention, fast. "Why don't we let the experts on the emergency crew do their jobs and make sure there aren't any more surprises waiting to go off in someone's face. Then when they give the all clear, we'll all have a good look."

Zelenka pushed his glasses up his nose and spoke hesitantly. "Actually, Colonel, none of the Wraith devices in this lab should have exploded. We always isolate potentially dangerous items in Area 51."

Sheppard gave him a odd look. "You send them to Nevada?"

McKay waved an impatient hand. "No, of course we don't! It's just the nickname some immature people use for our hazardous object quarantine facility out towards the western pier." He ignored the outraged look his colleague gave him and swept on. "But aside from our own equipment, we had many, many items of Ancient design in there for study and analysis—"

John cocked his head slightly to one side. "Maybe one of _them_ exploded."

Rodney's glare increased by a factor of five. "Excuse me, did I not just say we keep the dangerous stuff somewhere else? Every item is carefully evaluated before being brought in for study. And I can safely say most of the Ancient objects in this lab are, as far as we know, unique and irreplaceable."

No wonder Rodney was in such a foul mood. And that did put a different, uglier perspective on the matter. "So," he said, looking from one scientist to the other, "personally, do you think it could be sabotage rather than an accident?"

McKay and Zelenka exchanged uncomfortable looks, which told John the idea had already occurred to them. "It's too early to say," McKay finally said.

"But we have to consider the possibility," Zelenka added in a firmer tone. He met Sheppard's searching look unwaveringly. "Yes, Colonel, I know what I am saying. To have sabotage, we must have a saboteur. And the saboteur must be here among us. It is not a good thought."

"No," John agreed. "No, it isn't. You're sure this couldn't have just been. . .?" He let his voice trail off.

"Not one hundred percent, no." Zelenka shrugged his narrow shoulders. "But the odds, as you say in America, are against it."

Rodney scowled. "So, all right, I agree, we can't take any chances. That means from here on out we need to be very careful and make sure nothing else has been tampered with: All our computer systems, Earth and Ancient; the ZPM; all remaining Wraith and Ancient devices put under lock and key. And the sooner we can get in there and get started, the better. We might actually be able to disprove the theory."

"Maybe. We can at least hope." But even as John spoke, he felt the knot of dread in his belly solidify into certainty. "Okay, here's the plan. We'll organize teams to go through the city, checking to make sure nothing else has been damaged or otherwise tampered with." He caught a high sign from the head of the emergency crew; tilted his head back in acknowledgement. "Teams to have both military and civilian personnel. I'll brief Elizabeth. In the meantime, you're clear to get started in there. And let's keep this – other thing – among ourselves for now. The official line is we're just being careful about the unexpected explosive properties of alien devices."

Rodney and Radek both nodded and headed off together. The absence of bickering between them told Sheppard how seriously concerned they both were over the situation. John started back for the control room, clicking on his and Elizabeth's private channel as he did.

There was a long silence after his terse summary of the conversation. "Sabotage," she finally said on a sigh. "Not again. John, do you really think—"

"I don't want to, but my gut already believes it." Sheppard stepped into a transporter and touched the control that would take him very close to Elizabeth's office. "Listen, I'm almost there. Meet me in your office."

Less than a minute later, Elizabeth's worried jade green eyes met John's hazel gaze as he paused just inside her office. "If there really is a saboteur," she said, "he's going to know we're on to him – or her."

"Not necessarily, if we handle it right. I've told Rodney and Radek to play it cool for now, and just chalk it up to our not always knowing what we're doing."

His wife's lips and eyebrows quirked in the way he loved. "And Rodney actually went along with that?"

"Yeah. Just goes to show how worried about this he really is."

"John," Elizabeth smoothed her hands across her stomach, looking down as she did so, then raised troubled eyes to meet his again. "Should we recall Ronon and Teyla from the mainland?" she questioned softly.

John hesitated for a moment, briefly considering the question. He shook his head. "No. Not for the moment at least. You know even though they've gone over early, they're going to be very busy very soon with the preparations for their wedding. Unless things get much worse here, I think we'll just leave them alone. Besides," he grinned slyly at her, "Ronon has waited more than a year for Teyla to say 'yes,' and set a date. He'd probably kill me if I called them back now."

Elizabeth laughed at her husband's assessment of the situation, but a shadow still sat in her eyes. "You're right, of course. I know you have things you need to do, so I won't delay you any longer. Just – be careful."

John shot a cursory glance through the office's glass wall at the personnel in the control room; leaned forward and planted a brief but passionate kiss on her lips. "I will be. You too." Then he was off on his mission, strides long and determined as he settled back to the business at hand.

_**-Mainland-**_

He hadn't told her everything. Teyla knew that as clearly as if he had gone ahead and spoken it aloud. He was trying to protect her, to keep her from worrying, but it was all there to be read in his deep green eyes. He was afraid for her, desperately afraid: and just as desperately trying not to show it.

She remembered a Ronon from the future who also had been desperately afraid for her.

Cherishing his touch on her face, Teyla nodded as if in agreement. She let her aching eyelids close and, a heartbeat later, felt Ronon's warm lips press a kiss onto her forehead. He withdrew from her a little ways. Not far – she heard the unmistakable sound of wood being added to a fire.

Ravening pain rode every shallow breath she took. What had he said? _"One of your lungs isn't working so good."_ She couldn't move her right arm, but her left one was free. A fragment of a memory spun through her mind, of her helpless body impacting various surfaces as the Jumper's tumbling slung her around the interior. A broken rib would be a reasonable assumption under those conditions, she decided. Or even, she amended as she fought the urge to draw a deeper breath, triggering an even more vicious stab of pain, two.

And so the night passed for her in a pain-fogged haze. At times Teyla managed to achieve a fragile balance between her body's need for more oxygen and the agony any attempt to get it caused. During those brief periods of respite, she would hear Ronon stirring about, and slit her eyes open for a quick glimpse of him feeding the fire; sorting through supplies from the jumper; and once, standing very still at the edge of the firelight staring out to where the sea sighed and hissed.

But then there were the other times: the ones where she could not seem to breathe at all against the consuming agony, and weakness shivered through her in alternating waves of heat and cold. Even when her whole existence drew down to the battle for one more breath, and the next, and the next after that, she still knew he was there: supporting her, soothing her, encouraging her in whispers hoarse with unshed tears.

Morning eventually came, and with it a chill mist that veiled everything in soft shadows. The feel of Ronon's fingers caressing her cheek brought Teyla out of a semi-doze. As her eyes focused blurrily on him, "Hey," he said softly, "I made coffee. Want some?"

She nodded, and cautiously tried to free her left arm from the blanket. Ronon forestalled her with a quick touch and shake of his head. "Let me prop you up a little better first," he said. "Tell me if this hurts too much." Slipping his right arm under her shoulders, he eased her slightly more upright, positioning additional sleeping bags behind her as support.

"I let it cool down a little first," he said as he helped her take hold of the mug. "It should be safe to sip without blowing."

Teyla let the first sip trickle down her dry throat: wonderful. She took another, and visualized new energy spreading out into her body. Smiling at him, she mouthed, _Good. Thank you._

"You're welcome. Think you could eat a little something, too?"

An image flashed through Teyla's mind: field rations and MREs. She shook her head in instant rejection, then gave him a tiny smile in apology.

"Maybe later," he agreed. She saw the somberness in his eyes, and tilted her head in a question. He looked away from her for a moment, eyes turned farther along the beach; looked back. "Teyla, I need to do something more about Lieutenant Johnson. Will you be okay if I leave you for a little while?"

Sadness welled up in her heart as she remembered the enthusiastic young man who had given his life in a valiant effort to bring them to safety. She nodded. Ronon brushed his fingers across her cheek again before standing and walking away down the beach.

Teyla continued to sip her coffee. She kept her eyes on the ceaselessly changing pattern of the ocean, letting it lull her into an almost trance-like state. Time passed. The light brightened, though she knew it would be long before the sun actually climbed high enough in the sky behind the mountain to be able to shine directly onto the beach. Sounds came to her, and she realized she had been hearing them for some time without recognizing them: the chink and thud of stones being piled on stones.

Her meditative mood shattered irrecoverably. She set the empty mug aside, fighting off the impulse to sigh, aware once more of every pain large or small besetting her. She blinked down at her blanketed body. Very gradually, it occurred to her to wonder why she could not move her right arm. She understood the binding of broken ribs. And while her arm ached, yes, it was with more of a need-to-move kind of ache, rather than the deeper pain of a fractured bone. The longer she analyzed it, the more convinced she became that the arm was not broken. So, then, why immobilize it?

Carefully, Teyla brought her left hand up to her right shoulder and rotated her wrist enough to be able to grasp the edge of the blanket. She soon discovered Ronon had tucked it around her too well. She couldn't pull that side free without shifting more onto her left side – which she quickly decided was not a good idea. She went very, very still while waiting for the intense, red-hot pain in her lower chest to ebb back down to a more tolerable level.

_Maybe,_ the thought whispered through the back of her mind, _she should just let things be._ But no; the need to know had by now become a kind of mini-obsession with her. The blanket was looser on her left side. A simple matter, really, to push it off her from left to right, bunching it down onto her lap.

She still couldn't see. Crane her neck however she might, she only glimpsed the small mound of her fingers under the swathing bandages. The curving swell of her right breast blocked her view of the rest of her hand and forearm. Unreasoning frustration filled her. Very well; if she could not see, then she would _feel_ out the purpose of this senseless binding! She moved the fingers of her left hand over those of her right, probing, examining, eyes closed in concentration. Across the wrist now, and still nothing, no sharp stab of pain as from a broken bone, not even the soreness of a sprain; up to the forearm, pressing, seeking—

Her fingers encountered a bar of hardness under the bandages, just above her wrist. She prodded at it.

A burst of pain snatched at her breath. She resisted it, and the sudden fear accompanying it. Carefully, delicately, she made herself trace the dimensions of the bar; the narrowness of it, the sharp points protruding slightly from under the bandages on the end pointing toward her toes. Back the other way now, toward the other end—

The other end was in _her._

_-To Be Continued-_


	5. Resolution

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 5/?

**-Chapter 5-**

_Resolution_

Ronon set the last rock in place, completely blocking the entrance to the small cave he'd found in a higher section of the drop-off. Though the word "cave" was maybe a little ambitious, he decided as he wiped sweat from his face with his forearm. Deep, overhung ledge would be more accurate. Tomb, more accurate still.

He glanced toward where Teyla rested, less than a hundred feet away. He took a step in that direction, paused when his keen eyes saw her set the coffee mug aside. She was still doing – relatively – okay, then. He'd go ahead and mark Johnson's gravesite for the searchers he knew would eventually come. But how? he wondered. It needed to be both noticeable and unmistakable, and he didn't have a whole lot at his disposal.

He scanned the beach, and the overhanging forest above. His gaze passed over a couple of saplings brought down by some past gale; hesitated and went back. One lay almost flat on the steep slope, the other crossing it at an angle. Memory stirred, unfolded. . .

Very, very late night, himself and Sheppard sitting in the cafeteria talking long after the rest of the city slept. He didn't even remember now how they'd gotten onto the subject. Just somehow, the talk had turned from beliefs in general to Satedan and Earth beliefs in particular. Those two crossed saplings. . . If he used vines to bind them together. . .

Ronon nodded his head slowly in acknowledgment, knowing how to mark Johnson's tomb.

He placed the finished cross about ten feet out from the blocked-up ledge – far enough to stand out clearly from the background scenery, yet still well above the high tide line. He buried the bottom foot or so in the sand, then stacked rocks around the base to brace it further. He gave it a testing shake. Satisfied that it would stand, he took a couple of steps backward. Looking at the tomb beyond, he raised a fist in the salute of one Satedan warrior to another.

With his sad duty to Johnson accomplished, Ronon started back toward Teyla, his gaze jumping anxiously ahead of his steps. But— The blanket no longer wrapped her. And there was something about the rigidity of her pose— He launched into a dead run, dropping to his knees a few strides away from her and skidding to a halt.

"Teyla!" Gently, carefully, he took her left hand in his, lifting it away from where it rested on the thin piece of crystalline conduit protruding from her body. The appendage felt very small in his, and icy cold. He put his other hand along the side of her face, which wore an expression of absolute shock. "Teyla, love, look at me."

Her eyes lost some of their glazed look, tracking vaguely in his direction. They focused on his face. "Ronon?" Her gasping cry was weak. "What – is –?" Her breath gave out, but her fingers tightened on his with surprising strength.

"A piece of the jumper, I don't know what exactly. It broke off during the crash, and somehow you landed on it." Ronon smoothed his thumb over her cheekbone. "I meant to tell you after I buried Lieutenant Johnson and before we started for the settlement."

Her first shock past, Teyla's breathing slowed again to a shallow rhythm. Even so, she was barely able to whisper, "Ronon, I cannot." She shook her head against his hand, her beautiful brown eyes despairing.

"You won't have to walk. I'm going to carry you." He moved his thumb to cover her lips, his own twitching the slightest bit as he did. "And don't try to say that _I_ cannot. For you, I can do whatever I have to do." He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before putting it down at her side again and gathering up the discarded blanket. To prevent any further attempt at argument from her, he stood, and went about breaking camp.

In doing so, Ronon had to force himself to go against years of having to hide every trace of his presence in a place. This time he wanted, he _needed_ for those hunting him and Teyla to be able to see where they'd been. He didn't know how long it would be before someone, either on Atlantis or in New Athos, realized they were missing. Lieutenant Johnson had been under no orders to return immediately to Atlantis; had, indeed, been granted leave to stay at the settlement in case Sheppard needed to recall him and Teyla in a hurry. No one on Atlantis expected to hear from them. The Athosians might wonder a little, but ultimately would simply assume they'd been delayed on Atlantis when they didn't show. After all, the pre-marriage preparations didn't actually start until the weekend.

However, when someone, somehow, did finally realize they were missing, he had absolute faith no effort would be spared in searching for them. If he'd learned nothing else in his years with the Atlantians, he'd learned that.

But he also knew with equal clarity they could not remain on the beach waiting for rescue to come. He'd had plenty of time to think during the long, slow hours of the night. No matter how he looked at it, he always came back to the same conclusion: The Atlantians didn't know they had an enemy among them, and their ignorance increased their danger. They had to be warned, and this was the only way.

Very aware of Teyla's eyes following his every movement, Ronon tucked a loaded nine-mil into his waistband at the small of his back; thrust another more accessibly around toward the front. He checked one final time to make sure the campfire was completely doused. Shrugging on the big black backpack he'd readied earlier, he snapped the ends of the connecting chest strap together, then crouched down next to Teyla.

"Ready?" he asked.

Teyla looked up at him with troubled eyes, tipping her head sideways in an uncertain little movement. "They – will – come," she managed to gasp.

He regarded her somberly. "Teyla, the jumper was sabotaged. There's no way everything that did go wrong at once _could_ have gone wrong without it being rigged to happen that way. Whoever tried to kill us is still back on Atlantis – and Sheppard and the rest have no idea of the danger they're in. We have to get a warning to them."

Her eyes and mouth rounded in dismay. She reached out to grip his wrist with her left hand, and her eyes locked onto his with great urgency. "You – go. I – stay."

"Not going to happen. We don't leave our people behind." He gently loosed her fingers from his wrist, and very, very carefully gathered her into his arms.

"Ronon—"

He stopped her with a quick kiss and rose smoothly to his feet. "We go together, Teyla." Trying not to jostle her any more than necessary, he strode toward his chosen route up onto the flank of the mountain.

_**-Mainland-**_

Not far from the crash site, but in the opposite direction from Johnson's tomb, a creek had cut its meandering way to the ocean from higher up the mountain's slope. It gave Ronon an easy way onto the mountain from the beach; and since its course ran more or less the way he wanted to go, he planned to follow along it as far as possible.

Ronon found the going fairly easy for the first two or three hours. Then the stream turned away from where they needed to go, forcing him onto steeper and rougher terrain. The higher they went, the more and more frequently he had to pause to chart out visually his next few steps. Many hazards waited to snag an incautiously placed foot: tangled undergrowth, fallen tree limbs, rocks. Acutely aware of what the consequences to Teyla of a stumble or a fall would be, he was very careful not to misstep. Even so, occasionally Teyla's arm would tighten around his neck, and her shallow breathing would catch. But she made no complaint of any pain his movements caused her.

The dull ache in Ronon's cracked collarbone was much sharper and hotter by the time the ground leveled out some. The trees were taller here, and more widely spaced. Their branches met overhead in a thick canopy that inhibited lower growing plant life. It was, he decided, a good place for a rest.

"That's the first stage behind us, love," he murmured into Teyla's hair as he eased down onto his knees. He gently set her down with her back to the wide bole of one of the trees, then reached around to withdraw a water bottle from a pouch on the side of his backpack. "We'll take a break here."

She accepted a drink of water, but closed her eyes and turned her head away from the power bar he offered her. Settling on the ground next to her, Ronon slowly ate the bar himself, stretching it over the ten minutes he'd allowed himself for rest and recovery. Between bites, he probed their surroundings with his gaze, mentally reviewing every time he'd flown over this country on his way to or from New Athos.

Swallowing the last of the power bar, Ronon automatically buried the wrapper under a nearby rock, then brushed his hands off on his pants legs. He took Teyla's hand in his and gave it a little squeeze. "Teyla," he said, and again, "Teyla." Very slowly her eyes opened. She looked at him, but he got the impression it was as from a great distance. He pushed aside the stab of fear that went through him. "Teyla, I'm going to take a scout around, make sure I'm remembering the terrain right." He took the nine-mil from against the small of his back and slid it under her hand. "Safety's already off. You need me, just fire a shot. But I won't be gone long, I promise. Okay?"

She nodded, very slowly, as if the motion was almost too much for her. Again he felt a quick little wiggle of fear in his gut. It took a genuine effort of will for him to push to his feet and walk away from her.

With instinctive quiet, Ronon moved off through the trees to his right. The ground very soon began to rise again, though not as steeply. The trees thinned. He stepped from under their eaves into clear daylight, and couldn't repress a smile of satisfaction at the view in front of him: rolling uplands curving and stretching between the near flank of this mountain and the next. Here and there, as far as he could see, treetops stuck up from folds in the land, offering potential campsites. He knew they still had a long way to travel. But until it became time to start the descent to the river leading to the settlement, the going would be much easier.

Ronon hurried back towards Teyla, anxious to get on their way again and cover as much distance as possible before dark. Calling her name to warn her of his approach, he wove between the two final intervening trees – and all the air left his lungs in a horrified rush.

One of the mainland's big, rarely seen catlike predators crouched in front of a totally oblivious Teyla. Its head was turned in Ronon's direction, and one front paw, apparently arrested in mid-motion, was half-extended as if to bat at one of her booted feet. For a timeless instant, beast eyes locked with human. Beast lips and human drew back in matching snarls.

Muscles rippling under the brown-dappled hide, the predator spun on its haunches and sprang straight at Ronon. With reflexes honed by his years of being hunted by the Wraith, the Satedan even more quickly snatched the nine-mil from his waistband, took instant aim, and pumped off five rapid shots. The creature's skull from its eyes back shattered bloodily. It convulsed in mid-leap, the bullets' impact throwing it backward head-over-tail. It landed in a limp heap halfway between him and Teyla.

_Teyla!_ On the thought, Ronon automatically thumbed the safety back on and jammed the gun into his waistband. In the same motion, he jumped over the carcass, eyes seeking toward where, startled out of her doze by the gunfire, she'd grasped the gun and managed to raise it. But the shock of her awakening added to her sudden movement proved too much for her. Her arm dropped limply as she collapsed sideways, gasping.

Ronon caught her by the shoulders before she could go all the way down. Feeling pretty breathless himself, he went to one knee, easing her into an upright position and supporting her as best he could against the shuddering spasms. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Teyla, I'm so sorry, please, stay with me," he whispered over and over into her hair. "Stay with me."

It took a long time for Teyla's breathing to settle back into a shallow yet steady rhythm. But finally, she rested limp and quiet in his arms. As he very gently wiped the sweat from her ashen face with the hem of his shirt, he wondered if it would be better if she remained unconscious. At least that way, she would be spared the awareness of her body's suffering.

With a sigh, Ronon retrieved the gun she had let fall. It was now a couple of hours past midday. Determined to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall, Ronon lifted Teyla and set off again. Once on the openness of the uplands, he settled into the smooth, ground-eating stride he could maintain indefinitely, only occasionally having to slow for rougher bits.

Late afternoon found Ronon navigating the way out of one of them: a long, deep, treeless dale that cut across his path. Fortunately, the upslope was more gradual than the way he'd had to take down into it; his leg muscles were beginning to burn and ache. As for his right shoulder, where Teyla's head rested – he wouldn't even allow himself to think about how much it hurt.

He paused for a couple of moments before making the final climb and looked down at Teyla. She'd been briefly conscious a few times since their encounter with the cat thing, never for very long, and not at all for quite a while now. Worry for her goaded him into motion again, along with the knowledge that every step he took was one closer to getting help for the woman he loved, and a warning to his friends on Atlantis. He climbed the last few steps up out of the dale.

And paused again, brow furrowing in puzzlement. The light over the highlands was dimmer than he'd expected it to be, as if twilight were already falling. Had he miscalculated the hours of daylight remaining? Possible, he supposed. His concussion plus lack of sleep could be affecting his time sense. He raised his eyes to the sky ahead. Its clear blueness seemed too bright for evening. Apprehension prickling over his skin, Ronon slowly turned to face the way they'd come.

They had come far enough for him not to be able to see the ocean itself anymore. He could still glimpse the tops of the trees covering the slopes above the beach, however; and how a fast-moving squall line was clawing its way inland through them, blotting out sky and sun. He and Teyla were above it for now. But they wouldn't be for long.

Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, lurid blue-white against the roiling darkness. A gust of wind carried the first rumblings of thunder to him, as well as the smell of rain. Ronon spun away from the oncoming storm, eyes searching ahead for some kind – any kind! – of shelter. There, off to his right, a line of greenery indicated a fold in the land, a chance at least to get out of the open. But it was a good two and a half, maybe three, klicks away, and he couldn't run, couldn't risk jostling Teyla that much. Grimly, he headed in its direction as quickly as he dared, even though he already knew:

There was no way they were going to make it ahead of the storm.

_-To Be Continued-_


	6. False Security

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 6/?

**-Chapter 6-**

_False Security_

"Well, the good news," Rodney's tired voice sounded in Elizabeth's ear via her headset, "if you want to call it that, is that mainly only recovered Wraith technology was destroyed in the explosion, along with some of ours, not very much. All the Ancient devices are accounted for, and intact."

Elizabeth paused in her pacing of the control room and puffed out a small sigh of relief. "Yes, Rodney, I will call it that," she responded, turning her steps toward her office so she could continue in privacy. "Have you determined any reason why—?"

"No, not yet." Her Canadian chief scientist sounded very snappy and edgy as he cut off her question. Well, he was entitled. It was now deep into the night of what had been a very long, very tense day. As she settled into her desk chair, she admitted to herself that she'd had her own snappy, edgy moments over the course of it.

John's voice joined the conversation; evidently he'd been monitoring the channel. "You know, the Wraith seem to have this fondness for self-destructs. Maybe a drone tried to trigger one as his Dart was going down, but something kept the timer from fully engaging – until now."

A note in her husband's voice warned Elizabeth this was a topic he wanted to end, so she smoothly said, "That's a very plausible explanation, John. Rodney, I'm very glad to hear we didn't lose anything Ancient. How close are you to getting it all secured?"

"With everything else I've had to do today? –Ask me again this time tomorrow night. McKay out."

Sheppard spoke again, this time sounding amused. "I think someone needs a huge dose of sugar and/or caffeine. Elizabeth, where are you?"

"In my office. You?"

"Headed that way. See you in a couple. Sheppard out."

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, absently rubbing her stomach with both hands as she replayed the conversation in her mind. She was still pondering the nuances when her husband entered through the door across from her desk. Without preamble, she said, "That's supposed to be a secure channel, John."

Sheppard dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk, automatically adjusted the P-90 clipped to his vest so it wouldn't dig into his side, and ran a hand over his face. "Right now, I'm not prepared to say what is secure, and what isn't. It's just when Rodney gets this tired and this snarky, sometimes he blurts things out. I didn't want him coming out with something like, 'Oh, is that part of our _official_ line now?'"

She regarded him soberly. "You still think the explosion was deliberate."

He regarded her back. "Yeah, I do. But don't ask me why. I've already been through it with McKay, who wants to believe the fact only Wraith tech – and a little of ours – was destroyed proves something just randomly went off."

Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow as comprehension dawned. "So he'd said something – 'snarky,' I think the word was – to you in person, and you didn't want him saying it over the radio to me. Because you're not sure what is or isn't secure." She shifted forward in her chair, resting her forearms and clasped hands on the desktop. "Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. If I understood Radek's earlier report, the Ancient and Wraith technologies were very carefully segregated from each other."

John twitched his shoulders in a half-shrug. "It was. I don't dispute that. But I have this evil, twisty mind. And I can't help but think it would have made it very convenient for someone to take what they wanted from that part of the lab, and destroy the rest to cover up the theft."

"If that is what happened. . ." She let her voice trail off, not liking the ramifications of that.

"And the really bad thing is – there's no way we can know for sure until the saboteur makes another move." Gloomy silence fell between the civilian and military leaders of the Atlantis expedition as they each weighed the possibilities.

It was broken by Carson Beckett bustling through the control room door. "Here, now, young lady," he said cheerfully, "what's my favorite mother-to-be still doin' up at this late hour of the night?"

Despite her worries, Elizabeth couldn't help but smile back at him. "Carson, I'm your _only_ mother-to-be."

"Aye, well, for now maybe. Though since you two have broken the ice, so to speak, and with Teyla and Ronon gettin' married at the end of next week, I'm thinkin' Atlantis may have a wee bit of a baby boom." Beaming genially, the Scottish doctor waggled his eyebrows and nodded. "But for now, Elizabeth luv, you're my lone maternity case. And as your doctor, I'm sayin' it's off to bed with ye."

Feeling a tad mulish, Elizabeth glanced over at her laptop. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John and Carson exchange a look. Suddenly suspicious, she looked sharply from one to the other. "Did you two set this up?" she demanded.

John tipped his head to one side and grinned crookedly. "Yep." Keeping his eyes on hers, he stood and rounded her desk to hold his left hand out to her. "You heard the doctor. Come on, Mrs. Sheppard – time for bed."

She couldn't resist: not now that she saw how tired he looked himself. Putting her hand in his, she allowed him to draw her to her feet. As they moved past Carson, she gave him a playful poke with her free hand. "Good night, _Doctor._ We'll have a talk in the morning."

He didn't look at all worried. "G'night to both of ye. Sleep well."

"You, too, Doc," John said. "And thanks."

Normally at the end of the day, they both enjoyed "taking the long way around," strolling slowly through the night-dimmed corridors of their city. Tonight, by mutual if unspoken consent, the leaders of the Ancient city of Atlantis walked to the transporter nearest to Elizabeth's office, transferring to the one nearest their quarters. They emerged still holding hands. Though she noticed how John's right hand rested with seeming casualness on his P-90, Elizabeth elected not to mention it, or the Marines stationed discreetly at either end of the hallway.

Once inside their quarters, John briefly squeezed her hand before letting it go. "I need a shower in the worst possible way," he said as he started divesting himself of his gear. "So if you want the bathroom first—"

"Thank you, sir, I do. Don't worry, I won't be long." Elizabeth blew him a kiss, grabbed her nightgown, and shut herself into the bathroom. She wondered, as she quickly washed her face and changed, if he would use the time to do a security sweep of their combined bed/living room; hoped in a way that he was. Because if he wasn't, it meant somebody else had already done it – and she really disliked the thought of that.

When she came out of the bathroom, John was sitting shirtless on the edge of their bed, pulling off his boots. His dogtags swung free, reflecting the light; returned to hang against his chest as he stood up. Elizabeth felt a little flutter go through her. Crossing to him on bare feet, she gave him a quick hug and kiss. "It's all yours," she said, smiling up at him.

"Thank _you,_ ma'am." Putting his arms around her, he returned the favor more lingeringly. Drawing away, he said, "Don't go anywhere," before vanishing into the bathroom for his turn.

After dimming the lights to the merest glimmer, Elizabeth turned down the covers, fussed with the pillows on her side, and crawled in with an unconscious little sigh. As usual now, the muscles in her lower back kinked and complained before finally giving up the fight and relaxing. She thought wistfully back to when she'd been able to sleep on her stomach, instead of propped half sitting up. Sometimes it felt as if she'd always been pregnant, would always _be_ pregnant. She remembered Carson's laugh when she'd confessed that to him.

"It gets worse before it gets better, luv," he'd told her with a pat on her shoulder. "Just wait until the last two or three weeks."

Wearing sleep shorts and a tee shirt, John came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. In the early days of their marriage, his coming to bed with his hair still damp had driven her slightly nuts. Simon had always carefully blow-dried his. She would never forget the shock she'd felt when she realized what she was doing – comparing her husband, the man who would willingly die for her, whose future self _had_ died for her, to the man who had been content with a "relationship," who wouldn't give up his safe existence to share the greatest adventure of her life with her.

She had never been even remotely tempted to do it again.

John tossed the towel back into the bathroom, then reached around the doorframe to turn out the light. "You would think," he grumbled as he crossed to their bed, "people as smart as the Ancients were supposed to be would at least have invented voice-activated light switches. I mean, they had them in _Star Trek_." He eased into bed beside her.

"_Star Trek_ wasn't real, John." Elizabeth felt the bed move as he rolled onto his side to face her.

"Well, then, the clap-on, clap-off things. _We_ were smart enough to invent those!" His left hand very gently settled onto her belly. "Wow, the little guy is really active tonight, isn't he?"

"Yes, _she_ is." So, they weren't going to talk about the other business. That was okay with her. "How's the betting pool going?"

"You know about that?" The surprise in John's voice was so obviously faked, she gave him a nudge with her elbow. "Evenly split the last I heard. People now are trying to figure ways to bribe Carson into spilling the beans."

Elizabeth laughed. "Thank goodness for the Hippocratic Oath, or doctor/patient confidentiality, or whatever." She began drawing idle patterns on the back of his hand with her fingers. "I wonder how the wedding preparations are going for Ronon and Teyla?"

John worked his other arm behind her and shifted a little closer. "Remember, those don't actually start until sometime this weekend. They just went over a little early so Ronon could _prepare_ for the preparations. I wish you could've heard him talking about them during our last trip offworld. He'd probably enjoy it more if he was headed off to the gallows. It seems there are days' and days' worth of pre-marital meditation ceremonies to go through—separately for him and Teyla, of course—and he won't be able to see her until the wedding ceremony itself." Elizabeth began to giggle; everyone on Atlantis _knew_ how Ronon felt about meditating. "Teyla very sweetly assured him that 'it would all pass very quickly.' It was really, really funny. Teyla just sat there smiling serenely, while Ronon looked like someone had shot his dog. And if _anything_ happens to interrupt them at _any_ point," he nestled his forehead against her temple, pausing for dramatic effect, "they _have to start all over again from the beginning_."

"Then we'll just have to handle this ourselves, so we won't have to call them back. I wouldn't want Ronon to be unhappy with either of us." Elizabeth turned her head toward him so they were almost nose to nose. "I'm glad you insisted on adding him to your team, John. I can't imagine Atlantis now without him."

"No." There was a wealth of emotion in that simple word.

She quickly brushed his lips with a kiss of apology, knowing that not even her wildest imaginings could come anywhere close to what it had been like for him during that time more than a year ago. To turn the subject, she said, "I wonder how Lieutenant Johnson is enjoying his time off. When he arrived in Atlantis, he looked a little overwhelmed."

Her husband hugged her in silent gratitude. "I think he was just wowed at Atlantis 'cause it's so big. He's really interested in other cultures, though, so he's probably having the time of his life on the mainland." He kissed her, and then chuckled. "Even if Ronon isn't."

Snuggling a little closer, they settled down to sleep, never dreaming how gravely wrong they were. . .

_-To Be Continued-_


	7. Dreamscape

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warning, pairings, etc.

Part 7/?

**-Chapter 7-**

_Dreamscape_

An especially vicious burst of wind tore at Ronon's backpack, nearly unbalancing him. He swore as he instinctively widened his stance to steady himself against its buffeting, and continued to study the slope in front of him for the safest way down. The short declivity wasn't much; but it was the best chance at even minimal shelter that they had. He didn't have much time to get to its bottom, either. Already he could hear the thud of hailstones impacting the ground to their rear.

Ronon made the descent at an angle, placing each foot with extreme care, refusing to let his inner urgency push him into taking any risks. He'd barely made it to the foot of the declivity when, with a boom and a roar, the storm swept over them. Immediately dropping into a crouch, he sheltered Teyla, protecting her with his big body. The rise of land behind them deflected the worst of the howling winds, but afforded no protection at all against the hail and rain. The only thing he could do was endure their merciless pounding on his broad back.

Eventually, the hail's battering ceased, though the rain continued to pour from the sky in wind-whipped veils. So numbed was Ronon by the onslaught, it took a while for him to realize when the storm had passed; and that rays from the setting sun were slanting under the lifting tatters of cloud. Water dripping from his hair, he cautiously lifted his aching head, which still throbbed in time with the diminishing crashes of thunder, to blink at a landscape carpeted with glistening balls of ice. Slowly he became aware of Teyla's fingers tightly gripping his shirt over his heart. He glanced down to see her gazing about with a dazed, disbelieving expression.

He had to clear his throat a couple of times before he could speak. "Had a little bit of a storm blow in from the ocean," he explained reassuringly, wondering just how long she had been conscious. "Caught us half a klick shy of a stand of trees. We'll make camp there for the night. Maybe I can even find enough dry wood for a fire." Shifting his weight, he made as if to lift her; felt her fingers tighten their hold on his shirt enough to pinch his skin through the fabric.

"No." Her puff of breath was barely recognizable as a word. Rolling her eyes for an upward look at him, she moved her head weakly in a negative shake. "No farther."

"Teyla, we're pretty exposed here. We can't—"

Tears welled into her dark, shadow-ringed eyes. With a struggle, she managed one more word. _"Please."_

Ronon hesitated for a split second. At least they'd have the declivity at their backs, he reflected. They wouldn't be completely out in the open. He let a small smile touch his lips and, "Okay," he said simply. "We'll stay here for the night." He smoothed some tendrils of damp hair from her face. "Can you sit on your own while I make us a place?" She let loose of his shirt and nodded. He stood, hands poised ready to catch if she should start to fall over. But she braced her left arm under her, and gave him a determined, almost defiant look.

Moving very fast, Ronon shrugged out of the backpack, letting it fall; then out of his shirt, which he wrung as dry as he could before putting it back on. In short order, he had a waterproof groundsheet spread and Teyla, blanket-wrapped against the gathering twilight, sitting on it. Next, he took a sterno can from one of the pack's exterior pouches, and a lighter from another; rummaged out the compact mess kit and a packet of instant soup.

He caught a look from Teyla, weak, but clear as spoken words: _That had better not be for me._ "It is," he said, giving her a look of his own: _Don't argue with me._ "You've got to have something more nourishing than water, something hot on the inside. I don't think you want an MRE," he grinned persuasively, "so you get the soup. I'll eat the MRE." She rolled her eyes, but bobbed her head in acquiescence.

By the time she managed to get all the soup down, one tiny sip at a time, it was fully dark. Ronon ate his MRE by starlight before packing the mess gear away again out of habit, in case they had to make a fast move during the night. That done, he used the backpack to prop Teyla in a semi-reclining position. Wrapping a blanket around his shoulders, he settled down to keep watch.

Slowly, insidiously, the night's quiet twined with his tiredness, weighting him in a net of lethargy. For the first few hours, he fought it by making himself stand to pace back and forth. But each time, it took more and more effort – effort which wore him down even more, until he sank into a kind of waking doze that sucked him ever deeper. . .

. . .Ronon slept.

_**-Flashback: Atlantis-**_

_He knew that gleam in her eye._

_Unfortunately, he hadn't seen it in time to do anything about it. Now all he could do was stare up into Teyla's sparkling eyes as she stood with one bare foot planted on his chest, holding him to the mat, her Bantos rods crossed at his throat._

_How did she _do_ that? Usually he was very good at picking up on and countering even the most intricate of moves from his opponents. However, even though he'd been sparring with Teyla Emmagan for a long time now, he found it nearly impossible to discern her movements. She was sly, and moved as lithely as a cat. Only rarely was he able to beat her any more. He had a feeling those first few matches he'd fought and won against her were either a really good stroke of luck, or she'd been picking up _his_ tricks while secretively working on a few new ones of her own since._

_Finally she moved her foot and her rods. Her dark eyes danced with mischievous laughter she would not allow to show on her face. "Did that hurt?" she asked innocently._

_He forced back the primal growl hovering at the back of his throat. He arched his back, then threw his shoulders forward as he sprang erect, gathering his own Bantos rods into one hand on the way up. He stood for a couple of breaths, deliberately looming over her, knowing with secret delight she wouldn't be the slightest bit intimidated. When she merely raised her eyebrows and tipped her head inquiringly to one side, he dropped the pose and let his lips curve into the smile he'd been fighting._

"_You're going to have to teach me how to do that," he said. He moved past her towards the other end of the room, leaned his weapons against the wall._

_He could feel her gaze on his back. "Oh?" she asked, giving the word a provocative inflection._

_Was that playfulness he heard in her voice, or something else? He turned to face her. His back was to the gym's tall windows. Light streamed through them and past him to fall on Teyla, seeming almost to caress her sweat-sheened skin. Wanting very badly to do the same, he held himself absolutely still, not allowing anything of that to show as he studied her. Even though she wore a deadpan expression now, he sensed something else was definitely going on inside her. Something she was having trouble concealing since she no longer had the screen of their sparring to hide behind._

_Realization took shape in his mind: This was the first time they'd sparred since this timeline, at great sacrifice, had been restored. The first time they'd even been in the gym since he had come in on the end of a kiss between Teyla and the Ronon Dex who had come from the future to save her from a terrible death._

_And died doing it._

_He saw her breathing quicken as her inner struggle intensified. He wanted to help her past it, but wasn't exactly certain how to go about it. She was staring at him, almost as if she didn't know him, looking so beautiful, and more than a little dangerous. He started to take a step toward her; thought better of it, and instead said very quietly, "Teyla? Whatever is wrong – let's talk about it. Let me help."_

_At first he wasn't sure if she'd even heard him. When she did speak, her voice was husky. "I want to ask you a question, Ronon."_

_He didn't like the note in her voice, and had a feeling he wouldn't like the question any better when it came. But, "All right," he said._

_Teyla took a couple of steps closer to him, eyes intent on his face. "Tell me, Ronon, now that things are – different – between us, how do you feel about battle?"_

_He blinked, wondering if that was a trick question. "It's still necessary. The Wraith are still out there, even if—"_

"_That is not what I meant." She cut him off. "Now we have admitted how we truly feel about each other, have your priorities in battle changed? Are you still the same warrior I have fought alongside for so many years?"_

_He knew what she was asking. He'd asked himself the same thing sometime during nearly every night since the other Dex's death. He'd come up with no good answer then, and he didn't have a better one now. All he could do was look at her and say simply, "I don't know."_

_She reached out and gripped his arm, her fingers biting into his skin almost painfully. "Be honest with me, Ronon. That is all I ask, and that is what I need: your honesty."_

_He swallowed hard. He knew the people from Earth had rules about relationships, and the impact they could have when they involved members of the same team, or the same military command structure. But that was something of a grey area for him, since he and Teyla were natives of the Pegasus galaxy, and as such not officially part of the military or even the civilian components of their expedition. Mostly, he'd been telling himself that if Colonel Sheppard saw it as a problem, then Sheppard would make it clear. _

_However, he knew Teyla wasn't going to be satisfied with that. _He_ wasn't satisfied with that._

"_I can't promise you," he told her. She wanted honesty; that was as honest as he could get. "I know what you're asking. And I can't promise I'll never put your welfare, your safety, ahead of Sheppard's, or McKay's, or anyone else's."_

_Teyla let her hand drop. She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes and expression going guarded. Then she said, softly but with great intensity: "If there comes a time when it is them or me – do not choose me."_

_With that she turned away from him, and walked out of the gym without a backward glance._

_**-Mainland-**_

Ronon jerked awake, cold sweat drenching him almost as thoroughly as the rain had, his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest. Gasping, he rocked up into a sitting position, then onto his feet, swaying and not knowing which alarmed him more: the fact he'd fallen asleep while on watch, or the dream in which he'd relived that confrontation with Teyla. Neither of them had ever referred to it again. In the busy and eventful year-plus since it had occurred, he'd more or less assumed the issue had been resolved, and forgotten about it.

Obviously, as his sleeping mind had just sharply reminded him, he'd been wrong about that.

He rubbed a shaking hand over his face, trying desperately to reorganize his mind and reorient himself as the world swung dizzily around him. Overhead, the stars were fading in the brightening sky. Dawn was coming. The light, although not yet enough to return color to the world, was growing stronger. He shook his head, trying to clear from it the cobwebs of tiredness and the lingering effects of the dream. Ancestors, he wondered, how long had he slept?

A tug at his pant leg drew his attention downward, to see Teyla gazing up at him in concern. He sat down again, more heavily than he intended, wincing as the impact jarred up through his sore body.

"Sorry," he muttered, trying to shove the dream and all its implications out of his mind, because he was _so_ not getting into _that_ with Teyla. And again, "Sorry. Fell asleep on watch. I – I've never done that before. If anything had been tracking us. . ." He let his voice trail off as he scrubbed at his face with both hands.

A gentle touch descended on his knee, of fingers stroking soothingly. Ronon met Teyla's eyes, and found only comfort and deep love there. Catching her hand in his, he kissed each finger individually, then turned it so he could press a kiss into her palm, just as the first rosy beams of daylight spilled into the sky.

When he asked if she was ready to travel, Teyla made no demur, even seeming cautiously anxious to go. They were on their way again within the hour, Ronon's long legs carrying them steadily into the sunrise.

It lacked only about an hour until noon when Ronon felt chills begin shivering through Teyla as her temperature started to rise.

_-To Be Continued-_


	8. Fears and Forebodings

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 8/?

**-Chapter 8-**

_Fears and Forebodings_

Teyla watched Ronon whenever she could, tracing his dearly loved features with her eyes. Even when she wandered the outer fringes of consciousness and physical sight faded, his face stayed in her mind. She clung to that image as to a talisman, using it to fuel her determination to be strong for him, as he was being so strong for her.

But she was so tired of the pain burning through her chest with every movement, every breath.

So tired of not even being able to take a halfway deep breath, or move her arm, or simply stretch cramped muscles.

So tired of the dragging weakness.

So _tired._

The chills, when they started, swiftly added another layer to her misery, proving she had not yet plumbed the depths of agony. She wanted to beg Ronon just to stop, to put her down, to let her rest; was perversely glad she couldn't get enough air in her lungs to say the words. Biting her lips shut against the urge to whimper, Teyla felt the fever take tighter and tighter hold of her.

The boundaries between reality and imagination shifted, melted, blended. . . _Her eyes were closed, yet still she could see Ronon carrying her through a blurred landscape that went on and on without end. In this place that was no place, she twined her fingers in his dreadlocks, marveling at their springiness, and said quite easily, "Is it not enough, my love?"_

"_No," he replied, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead. "It won't be enough until I get you to the settlement."_

_There were two Teylas: the Teyla whom Ronon carried, and the invisible Teyla who floated along beside them, watching and listening. The first Teyla continued to finger his hair as if nothing else were important, seemingly fascinated by its texture. After a long time that was no time at all, she said, "They will not be able to help me there."_

_Ronon moved his head restlessly. "They can call Atlantis. Sheppard and Beckett will come."_

_Invisible Teyla felt a great sorrow flood through her. Poor man, poor sweet man – he did not know this was all for nothing._

_Or was it? The other Teyla spoke again. "You must warn Atlantis. They are in danger." Ronon didn't reply as he carried her through failing light into darkness, but his face took on a haggard look. She watched herself tighten her fingers on his dreadlocks and pull. "Ronon, listen to me. I am not even supposed to be alive. You must warn Atlantis._ Do not choose me."

Agony unimaginable ripped her, mind and body, into cold, flaming tatters.

_**-Mainland-**_

"Teyla! _Teyla!_ Don't cough, please, you _can't_ cough!"

Ronon lowered Teyla to the ground as quickly as he could. Kneeling over her while pressing his hands to either side of her face, he shouted the words frantically at her, trying to break through to her. "Teyla, love, listen to me, you've got to hear me and hang on just for a little bit. You _can't_ cough again, you _can't!"_

She was with him again, just marginally enough to give him a tiny nod: She understood. He leaned in a little closer. "I'm going to give you morphine, hold on, _hold on."_

He'd packed the med kit to be accessible without having to take time to get the backpack off. Reaching around, he got it out of its pouch and open with no fumbling at all, fingers homing unerringly in on the syringe in its sealed package. _Check it, lad, check it first!_ Beckett's voice from that long-ago teaching session sounded in his memory, and Ronon instantly obeyed: _Morphine, yes!_ Feverishly ripping the pre-loaded syringe from its sterile wrapper, he jabbed the needle end against the big muscle on top of Teyla's thigh, just as Beckett had taught him, pressed the button that injected the drug. Withdrawing it, he dropped it into the open med kit.

He took Teyla's face between hands free to shake now, thumbs caressing her high cheekbones. How much more damage had that cough done inside her punctured lung? Hot, she was so hot, her skin dry to his touch. . .

Her eyelids fluttered, opened halfway, her pain-filled eyes looking straight into his. Her lips moved, shaped words with no sound: _Ronon. Do not – choose – me._

Shock blasted coldly through him, his skin prickling into goose bumps. Shaking his head in denial, he bent down until their noses nearly touched. "We go together, Teyla!" he said fiercely. _"I choose both!"_

The morphine took effect, snatching her away from him. Ronon didn't know if she'd heard him or not. He rested his forehead gently on hers, a dry sob heaving his chest before he could lock his jaw against it. That she should say those words so soon after he'd dreamed them—! A superstitious chill shivered its way through him.

Didn't matter. He wasn't leaving her behind, and he _would_ get a warning to Atlantis. Ronon kissed her before he straightened. He carefully closed the med kit and returned it to its pouch; removed the backpack long enough to rummage out the big flashlight he'd used in the jumper and sling its carry strap over his arm, ready to use when darkness came.

There would be no stopping tonight, no waiting for the dawn. As long as he could see a way clear before him, he would push on, and reach the Athosian settlement that much sooner. But as he very, very carefully lifted Teyla in his arms once more, he couldn't deny one simple fact:

Even he was beginning to tire.

_**-Atlantis-**_

He walked among them, watching, listening. He heard much talk about the upcoming wedding, and inwardly shook with silent laughter. The wedding, the wedding: It would never happen. He had seen to that. The jumper was safely at the bottom of the ocean with – what was the saying? – all hands lost.

Not much was being said about the explosion in the main lab, though such talk was what he wanted most to hear. The snippets he gleaned were offhand references; no one seemed to be all that alarmed about it. Indeed, every time someone did mention it, the conversation inevitably included the words "one of those things." It wasn't long before he got very tired of those words, even somewhat offended. Since he had taken great pains to cover his tracks, he really had not expected to hear whispers of sabotage. But he had expected the Atlantians to be more unsettled, more apprehensive and uneasy.

Well, when word finally did break of the deaths of the bridal pair, he was sure the reaction would be everything he could ever have anticipated, and possibly more.

Another thing rasped his nerves raw – all the talk about Sheppard and Weir's baby. He'd dutifully entered his name in one of the many pools concerned with gender and birthdate. Fortunately, no one expected males to gush about the coming event the way the females did, so he was spared having to counterfeit that. Still, though, the topic made him want to retch.

A new idea began to burn at the back of his brain. Soon, now, soon the word would come of the loss of Jumper Seven and its passengers. The Atlantians would grieve, be demoralized. If he contrived for something to happen to one of Atlantis's leaders – it would not have to be both together. The removal of one would be enough to cripple the other – morale would shatter.

_Weir._ He drew the name out in his mind, savoring the accompanying images. _Weir – and the baby she carries. Even Sheppard will be broken by that loss._

_**-Atlantis-**_

"We have found nothing, absolutely nothing, that points unequivocally to a deliberate act of sabotage." Rodney glared at everyone in Elizabeth's office with bloodshot eyes.

John met Radek's gaze. The Czech looked just as tired – though whether it was all physical, or just mental tiredness from dealing with Rodney, he wasn't certain. He also didn't look convinced by McKay's assertion.

"We have found nothing that unequivocally rules _out_ the explosion being a deliberate act of sabotage, either." John felt it was incumbent on him to point that out when Zelenka declined to speak.

McKay flung the hand not holding a coffee cup up in exasperation. "Look, it has been _three days_ since the explosion in the lab. Nothing else has happened! I say it's time to back off the high alert a little bit, and let the people with _important_ work to do get back to it."

Sheppard rolled a look at Elizabeth, who was leaning forward with her elbows on her desk, and had to smother a smile. Her eyes kept flickering towards the cup McKay held; John could have sworn he saw her nostrils twitch. As if feeling his gaze, she glanced his way. The corners of her mouth quirked at him before she turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

"I don't discount either view," she said calmingly. "But, while I'm glad there have been no further – negative – incidents, neither am I quite ready to sound an all-clear. As far as I know, no one other than those of us in this room knows of our suspicions. I simply feel we four should continue to keep our eyes and ears open, while returning somewhat to our normal activities."

Rodney wasn't ready to drop it. "Oh. and may I ask exactly what is defined by the term 'somewhat'?"

"As in not cluttering the labs up with fifty different things at once, Rodney, and not burying your head up to your—" John caught a vivid glance of warning from his wife "—_elbows_ in what you're doing to the exclusion of everything else around you."

"Just everyone keep your minds open to the possibility that something might be going on," Elizabeth said firmly. "If any of you get a feeling something is the least little bit 'off,' don't shrug it aside. Report it so it can be investigated. Are we all clear? Good, then – thank you, gentlemen." She leaned back in dismissal.

After the briefest of nods, Rodney took himself and his coffee out of the office. Zelenka lightly struck the arms of his chair a couple of times, seeming about to say something; shook his head, sighed, and left without speaking. Elizabeth looked after them, her forehead puckered slightly. John just slouched a little lower in his chair, and waited for a few minutes before asking, "Is it Rodney's coffee you're coveting, or his ability to be an ostrich?"

Elizabeth gave him a mildly reproving look. "Maybe he is right, and we're wrong, John. Maybe it _was_ some freaky, one-in-a-million thing. Or maybe, just maybe, someone new to what we deal with out here made a mistake he or she is afraid to own up to making."

John scratched the back of his head. "Believe me, 'Lizabeth, this is one I wouldn't so much mind McKay gloating over. I just wish he and Radek had been able to piece things back together well enough to tell if anything dangerous is missing from the lab."

"To hear Rodney tell it, it hasn't been for lack of trying." Elizabeth pushed to her feet and cautiously stretched, one hand on her back, the other on her stomach. "I need to move, get some fresh air. Walk out to the balcony with me?"

"Sure." John also stood, allowing her to precede him onto the bridge to the control room. He decided a little judicious teasing was in order. "But aren't you really just trying to get away from the lingering aroma of McKay's coffee?"

Elizabeth laughed as they passed through the control room to what McKay, way back in the very first year of the expedition, had tagged as the Leaders' Balcony. "Was it so obvious? I had to fight to keep my fingers from twitching, I wanted to grab that mug from him so badly!"

"You did a good job with the fingers." John rested his elbows on the railing. "But I think I saw your nose wiggle a couple of times." He watched as she took several deep, cleansing breaths of salt-tangy air before saying, "Radek hasn't given up looking for evidence yet, even though I think Rodney has managed to instill some doubts."

"Mm, yes, I picked up on that, too." She smoothed down a windblown lock of hair. "I'm thinking about talking to Kate about this."

"Heightmeyer?" John blinked a couple of times; he hadn't seen that one coming.

Elizabeth laughed again, very gently, and gave him a loving look. "Not because I need help dealing with this on a personal level, dear. But I just got to wondering sometime during the wee small hours, when _you_ were sleeping and _I_ couldn't, if perhaps. . ." She let her voice trail off.

". . .We have someone going crazy on us." John immediately picked up on her thought and finished her sentence for her. Without really seeing it, he gazed abstractedly out over the part of the city visible from the balcony as he turned the idea over in his mind.

"I'm sure Kate will use different phrasing, but basically, yes." She folded her arms across her front. "I mean, I know everyone is supposed to be screened very carefully before they're even told about the Stargate program, let alone Atlantis—"

"Oh, I wouldn't count on the reliability of _that_," John interrupted with a twisted grin. "After all, they passed Kavanaugh." He suddenly realized he'd been staring fixedly at something in the enclosed space of water far below for the past two or three minutes. _What the—?_ He felt himself stiffen as he instinctively sharpened his focus on the object. "Elizabeth, look down there," he pointed. "See that? Now, tell me what it looks like to you."

Narrowing her eyes, she obediently sighted along his arm. "I'm not sure I—" She broke off with a gasp. "John, that looks like a body floating down there!"

"Yeah, that's what it looks like to me, too." Grimly, he reached up to tap his headset on as he locked eyes with Elizabeth. "This is Colonel Sheppard. There's what looks like a body floating in the pool straight out from the control room balcony. I want a retrieval team geared up and down there _now_. Tell them I'll meet them there." He cut off the transmission and eye contact with his wife simultaneously.

He was already halfway to the control room doors when Elizabeth called after him, "I'll have Carson get ready for an autopsy."

John checked up at the doorway for a quick glance back. "Do that."

His insides feeling carved from ice, he took the steps down from the control room two at a time.

_-To Be Continued-_


	9. Hopeless

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 9/?

**-Chapter 9-**

_Hopeless_

As soon as John got a look at the sodden body the recovery team pulled from the water, he knew any autopsy would be a mere formality. In grim silence, he watched the sad husk be zipped into a body bag and liftd onto a stretcher, then contacted Elizabeth with an advance warning.

"--Make the announcement now," he ordered at the end, his gaze fixed on the cortege moving out ahead of him. "Security protocol delta-one."

He heard her breath catch, and knew the effort it cost her to repeat calmly, "Security delta-one, right. I'll put it out over city-wide immediately, then meet you in Carson's office."

When Elizabeth did join him, John automatically glanced beyond her, and felt a frown begin to form. She forestalled him, however, by saying quickly, "I didn't come alone, my escort is waiting for me at the infirmary's entrance."

"Good." As they settled into side-by-side chairs, John felt anew an intense appreciation for his wife's strength of character and intelligence. She wasted no time demanding reassurances he couldn't give her, nor did she try to fill the silence with nerve-grinding chitchat. Instead, she reached to rest a hand on top of his laced-together fingers and gave them a quick, comforting squeeze.

True to expectations, it wasn't long before the expedition's chief medical officer came into the nook that served him as an office. Seating himself at his desk, he sighed deeply before speaking.

"His name was Dmitri Yurivich Sharapov. He was an environmental engineer." Carson included both John and Elizabeth in his sad regard. "I knew him slightly: a quiet soul, really, rather solitary, liked to go off on his own to play his balalaika."

John felt a muscle in his already clenched jaw jerk. "I'm beginning to think Irina was right," he muttered. When Elizabeth and Carson each looked a question at him, he reluctantly elaborated. "If you're Russian, you shouldn't get anywhere near a Stargate." He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. "Okay, bottom line, Doc – how long since he was fed on?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elizabeth flinch. Beckett, though, met his eyes steadily. "Assuming the body was put into the water soon after. . . Two days, maybe three."

Elizabeth broke the brief, gloomy silence following Beckett's pronouncement. "John, do you think—?"

John looked down, nodded twice, looked back up again resolutely. "Yeah. I hate to do it to the kids, but we need Teyla and Ronon back here. It looks like we've got a Wraith in the city."

_**-Atlantis-**_

Something was happening in the city. He heard a rumor, that Sheppard had left the Gateroom at a dead run. The cafeteria buzzed with speculation over the cause. But that's all it was: mere speculation, and he wanted facts. He _needed_ facts.

He returned his tray to the collection table, remembering to smile absently at the airman who'd drawn that duty for the day. Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, he slowly descended the two steps from the dining area to the entrance level and went out into the hall. He hesitated, and turned toward the control tower. It was a risk. But he'd spent over a year now living with the Atlantians, blending in with them – loathing them. He was certain he could minimize the danger to himself.

On his way up the stairs from the Gateroom, he glanced casually around the control level; was mildly disappointed when nothing out of the usual seemed to be going on. Weir's office, on the far side of the room, appeared to be empty. He paused in the doorway to the small meteorological monitoring station tucked partly under the stairs to the jumper bay, rapped on the wall outside with his knuckles. "Hey, Jorge."

The dark-haired, dark-skinned man sitting inside quickly looked up. "Hey, James, didn't expect to see you here this time of day," he said. "Thought you'd be sacked out by now."

He briefly splayed one hand over his midsection. "A touch of indigestion," he said. "Plus, I couldn't keep my mind off the computer models I was working on last night. Do you mind if. . ." He made vague gestures at the computer monitor at the other end of the narrow space.

"Be my guest, man."

He settled in to watch and listen.

_**-Atlantis-**_

John and Elizabeth hurried straight from the transporter closest to her office to the control room. As they were crossing the bridge, Rodney and Radek bounded up the staircase from the Gateroom. The slightly built Czech was half-chanting under his breath, "I vas right, I vas right, I vas right." Rodney looked extremely disgruntled.

"Ah, Elizabeth, Colonel." Radek came right up to them, beaming. "I can now tell you unequivocally," John noticed Rodney's grimace at the word, "that the explosion three days ago was indeed deliberate act of sabotage. I have found—" He broke off abruptly, the bright look on his face fading. "What is it? What has happened?"

John shot a quick glance at Elizabeth to see if she wanted to handle this. She gave him an "over to you" kind of look while beckoning to Chuck. He drew a deep breath, feeling strangely regretful over having to rain on Zelenka's parade. "A body was found in the water this morning. It belonged to a Russian scientist named Sharapov. He'd been fed on. Recently." He heard Elizabeth in the background telling Chuck to radio New Athos, while watching expressions of shock spread over the two scientists' faces as the full import of his words registered with them. "We were just getting ready to recall Ronon and Teyla."

Rodney lifted a hand to his head, rubbed at his scalp with his fingertips. "Oh, that – that is just awful. Poor Sharapov! Poor Teyla! Poor Ronon! Though, maybe, Ronon not so much, he always enjoys hunting and killing Wraith— What?" Targeted by startled looks from the other three, he dropped his hand as his eyes went from one to the next of them in bewilderment.

John shook his head and fought an urge to grit his teeth. "Rodney," he began; wound up exhaling the rest of the breath, at a loss for what else to say. He moved to stand next to Elizabeth at the communications console, and rolled his eyes.

She gave him an eloquent look in return. He was aware of McKay and Zelenka hovering just behind him as Chuck put through the call.

A young man's voice came cheerfully over the speakers. "Greetings, Atlantis! This is Jinto. May I do something for you?"

John felt a grin tug at the corners of his mouth as he remembered Jinto for the adventuresome boy he'd been, the first Athosian he'd ever met. From the dimple in his wife's cheek, she was remembering the first time she'd met him, too. "Greetings, Jinto," she said, "this is Doctor Weir. And yes, there is something you can do for me. I need to speak with either Ronon or Teyla as quickly as possible."

A long silence came over the speaker. John began to get a very, very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then, "I do not understand, Doctor Weir." Jinto's voice had gone from cheerful to hesitant and confused. "Teyla and Ronon are not here. Are they not there on Atlantis with you?"

John's hands clenched into fists as he caught Elizabeth's look of alarm. "No, Jinto, no, they're not." She pressed both hands on her belly, visibly steadying herself. "They left Atlantis three days ago, to spend extra time at New Athos before getting ready for their wedding. And you haven't seen or heard anything from them in that time?"

"No, Doctor Weir." Now Jinto's voice came to them very soft and worried. "We all knew they did not have to be here until this week's end. When they did not come early, we just thought they were needed on Atlantis. I –I am very sorry."

"There's no need for you to blame yourself, Jinto. None of us had any way of knowing something was wrong." She turned her head to meet John's eyes with her own, already seeming to be in his head, as he seemed to be in hers.

He rocked on the balls of his feet, the need for action building rapidly to the exploding point inside him. Turning on his heel, he snapped, "Rodney, Radek: Get up to the jumper bay. Start going over Jumper One's preflight checks." He reached up to activate his headset as they instantly complied. "Beckett, this is Sheppard. Scramble a trauma team for a possible jumper crash and get up to Jumper One, now." He received the Scot's brisk acknowledgement in his ear, and tuned back in to hear Elizabeth finish saying:

". . .Jinto, please send search parties towards the coast as quickly as you can. Colonel Sheppard is going to take a jumper and head your way. Let us know if—" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"We will, Doctor Weir. New Athos out."

John leaned forward as Chuck terminated the link to the settlement. "Sergeant, try calling Jumper Seven. –Maybe they're just on a long detour," he added in an aside to Elizabeth. "It's worth a try."

She nodded, though she looked as convinced as he felt, which was not very. The call went out, one time; two; then three.

Only silence came back.

John's fingers beat a tattoo on the edge of the communications console. "That's it. Upload their exact flight plan to Jumper One. I'm going."

As he started to turn away, Elizabeth touched his elbow lightly. "Find them, John," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

He exchanged an intense, worried glance with her. "I will," he promised, and headed for the jumper bay.

_**-Mainland-**_

There wasn't a part of his body that didn't hurt. All his muscles and joints seemed made of fire, and the smoke of their burning cast a haze over his vision.

Came a time when he couldn't trust his eyes enough to know whether the next step was safe to take or not; when his knees and ankles wobbled unsteadily, constantly threatening to pitch him to one side or the other. Knowing a fall was imminent, Ronon set his left shoulder against a tree on the crest of the ridge he'd been navigating and very, very carefully used it to guide him down into a sitting position. Still holding Teyla cradled on his lap, he drew in a shuddering breath.

Her fever continued to rage unabated, heat seeming to rise from her body in waves. In all the long hours since it had begun, Ronon hadn't been able to give her any medicine to try to lower it. The one time he'd tried, in between doses of morphine, had been nearly disastrous, triggering a coughing fit that had ended by bringing up blood. Not much blood, fortunately, but he hadn't dared to try again.

Ronon let his scratchy eyelids sag shut: just for a moment, just long enough to catch another wind, to let some of the fiery weakness leave his limbs. The river had to be getting close. He'd been listening for it the past hour or so. Once there, all he had to do was cast around a little to find the ford; cross it; and then take a fairly easy walk upstream to New Athos. Nothing to it, he reassured himself.

Unless somehow during the night he'd gone astray from his course, and wasn't anywhere close to the river.

Ronon fiercely batted that thought from his mind as soon as he realized he was thinking it. The only reason they hadn't reached the river yet was because – he had to admit the truth – he was moving more slowly now than he had even at the beginning of this morning.

He wasn't getting any closer by just sitting here, either. He forced his eyes open. Making sure his hold on Teyla was secure, he used the tree as a brace until he had his legs set under him, heaved to his feet, and set off along the ridge again.

The ridge narrowed to only a few yards' width, dropping off steeply to either side as it began to descend. Very soon afterward, Ronon heard, mingled with the sighing of leaves rustling in the wind, the sound of water rushing over rocks. Just ahead the ridge kinked left. The light seemed brighter, as if filtering through thinner tree cover. It took all his self-control not to hurry forward, but maintain a steady, careful pace.

The sound got louder and louder. Unease prickled up the back of his neck. They were coming into territory he'd hunted over occasionally during the years since joining Sheppard's team. He didn't remember the river sounding this loud so close to the ford. But then, he didn't know exactly how near he was to it. Realistically speaking, he could be approaching the river a mile or two downstream from it. He knew he couldn't be approaching the ford from upstream. On this side of the river, the land quickly became an impassable maze of steep escarpments and fallen rock between the crossing and the settlement on the river's far bank.

The ridge continued its descent. Through the trees, now, and still far below, Ronon could catch sporadic glimpses of sunlight striking from water. _Yes, yes, _yes! His spirits lifted on beating wings of hope. He stepped out into a little clearing, eyes scanning anxiously ahead for his first clear view of the river, searching for landmarks.

_There!_ He knew that lightning-blasted tree on the near bank. It stood on a steep rise a few hundred feet upriver of the ford. His gaze traced the line of the river down, seeking the piled rocks marking the beginning of the ford—

They weren't there.

Ronon squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again. The tree was _there_. The ford should be _there_. . .

This time he saw the rippling on the water's surface he'd missed before. The stones were where they were supposed to be, all right.

They were just underwater. The river was in spate.

Despair seized Ronon's heart in a crushing grip. He sank to his knees, numbly cradling Teyla on his lap, not wanting to acknowledge the truth of what he saw. Scarcely realizing what he did, he brought his left hand up to cup his love's fever-hot face. He rested his cheek against the top of her head.

It had all been for nothing. They were cut off from the settlement. Teyla was slowly dying in his arms – and there was nothing else he could do.

_-To Be Continued-_


	10. Release

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 10/?

**-Chapter 10-**

_Release_

During the twenty-five minute flight to the mainland, tension smothered all conversation inside both of Jumper One's compartments as, according to standard search-and-rescue protocol, it followed Jumper Seven's planned route. John kept the HUD scanning for life signs at its widest sensitivity. He was glad when no one, not even Rodney, pointed out that any survivors and/or floating debris would be widely dispersed by wave and wind action after three days. Jumpers Two, Three, Four, and Six would be deploying to fly wider search patterns as soon as they were cleared for flight. But it fell to Jumper One to adhere to the exact flight plan as filed by Lieutenant Johnson.

A shadow grew on the horizon, resolved itself into the mainland. Rodney, riding shotgun in the copilot's seat, automatically leaned forward. John sensed Carson and Radek doing the same in the two jump seats. He slowed the jumper's airspeed as they got closer to land, his eyes flickering from the HUD to the view through the front port, and back again.

"There! There! Off to the left, do you see it?" Zelenka all but lunged into the space between the pilot and copilot's seats, arm jabbing excitedly. Carson stood, too, leaning over the back of Sheppard's seat. John immediately brought the little ship to a hover over the waterline and turned its nose in the direction indicated. An instant later he felt as if a giant had punched him in the gut when his brain registered what his eyes were seeing.

A cross – rough, but unmistakably a cross – planted on the beach as a marker. His chest tight with dread, he nudged the jumper a little closer. And there behind its long shadow was, just as unmistakably, a walled-up grave.

Carson dropped heavily back into his seat as Zelenka murmured something in his native Czech and bowed his head. Rodney made a kind of groaning noise. "Teyla— Ronon—" He sagged back, looking sick.

Sheppard stared at it for a long moment, then slowly shook his head. Speaking past the constriction in his throat, he said flatly, "It's Johnson."

"How could it possibly be Johnson?" McKay lashed back at him, sounding half angry, half like he was fighting back tears. "That's a _cross,_ Colonel, an _Earth_ symbol,Ronon or Teyla wouldn't know—"

"Ronon would." John felt the certainty grow more and more sure inside him. He sensed three pairs of eyes targeting him intensely, and his shoulders twitched in discomfort. "What? It was really, really late, we got to talking about – things, about – beliefs— Ronon's a soldier. He'd remember something like that." He backed the jumper while rotating it to give them a wider view of the beach. "I don't see any sign of their jumper, but— Wait a minute. What's that down the other way?" He sent the ship drifting in that direction.

"It looks like a pile of stuff out of a jumper!" Beckett had grabbed the back of John's seat again and seemed to be trying to shake it. "And surely that was a campfire!"

"Yeah." John sent an extra thought at the HUD just in case it had forgotten what he wanted it to look for. He bit his lip when no life sign dots popped up in response. "All right," he said, thinking it through. "We know they made it this far. There's only one grave. We know they aren't here now." He mentally tweaked the HUD and studied the results. "But from here. . .?" He frowned and rubbed his upper lip with a finger.

"Hopefully not that way." Zelenka squinted at the upper left portion of the display. "Looks like a frontal boundary has stalled out over that part of the mountains, lots and lots of rain."

"Terrain's too rough that way anyhow," John responded absently, thinking, _C'mon, guys, help us out here. Couldn't you have left a sign saying, "We went this way"?_

"Colonel," Beckett spoke up, sounding as if he didn't much like what he was saying, "if Johnson died from injuries sustained in the jumper's crash, we can probably assume Ronon, or Teyla, or both, were injured as well, perhaps even badly."

"Um, I'd say that's a given." Rodney was also studying the HUD, his expression bleak. "Uninjured, Teyla and Ronon could've hiked the most direct way to the settlement and back at least twice. Which means we wouldn't be here now. Sheppard," he shook a finger at the display, "what about this way?" He traced a route in the air with his finger. "It's longer, but—"

"—It's also fairly easy going. Comparatively speaking." John nodded decisively, reached for the com and activated it. "Atlantis, this is Sheppard. Get me Doctor Weir."

Elizabeth must've been right by the console by the swiftness of her response. "I'm here, John."

He gave her a capsule report of what they'd found and what they'd surmised, ending with, "Only one jumper needs to come to these coordinates, to retrieve Lieutenant Johnson's body. The others can stand down."

"Understood." He heard the sadness in her voice, and wondered if she, like him, was remembering their lighthearted conversation about the young Marine having the time of his life. "Let us know what you can when you can."

"Roger that. Sheppard out."

The tension in the cockpit, thick as it had been before, seemed ten times worse as John flew the jumper inland. As the ocean and sinking sun disappeared behind the mountain looming on their left, the HUD stayed stubbornly blank of what they wanted most to see. Sorrow over Johnson's death, along with vivid images caused by Beckett and McKay's comments about the likelihood of his teammates being injured, niggled at the back of Sheppard's mind. It took all his military training to shut out those distracting thoughts.

The jumper continued its long curve around the mountain. _Come on, come on, come on—_ At first he thought the monotonous beat of those words existed only inside his own head. Then he realized Rodney was chanting them under his breath.

_Come on, come on, come ON—_

Two dots, very close together, popped up on the extreme edge of the HUD's range.

"_YES!"_

John never knew for certain afterward if that triumphant yell came from one throat, or three. He kept all his attention determinedly focused on getting as quickly as possible to whom he passionately hoped those dots represented. Sending the jumper swooping over the final distance, he brought it to a halt that, if the ship had been a car, would have been a screaming slide.

"Where are— Oh." Apparently, McKay spotted the two motionless figures slumped on the edge of a small open space at the same time John did. "Oh, that doesn't look good."

Carson was on his feet again. "Can you land us, Colonel?"

John was already rotating the ship on its short axis, while nudging it delicately downward. "Get ready to go, Doc," he said tightly, as he started the hatch lowering. Beckett headed for the rear compartment. Evidently the two PhDs took his command to include themselves; they were right on Carson's heels.

The jumper settled, the ramp still only three quarters of the way down. As soon as it touched ground, John was out of his seat, thinking at his ship, _Shut yourself down!_ The control console went dark behind him. He pounded through the length of the ship to the hatchway. Catching the edge of the frame with his left hand, he used his momentum to swing one hundred eighty degrees as he leaped. He landed, knees flexed to absorb the impact, ran for the cluster of people halfway along the jumper's side, and skidded to a halt just short of mowing over Zelenka.

Ronon held Teyla across his knees, his muscular arms wrapped protectively around her slight body. She was clearly unconscious, her labored breathing having an ominously audible wheeze. Beckett knelt in front of Sheppard's teammates, his arms partly extended as if to receive Teyla into them. Ronon's sunken eyes were locked on the Scot's. The manic glitter in them reminded John strongly of his first encounter with the Satedan.

At the exact moment of John's arrival, Rodney went to one knee beside the couple, and very carefully put a hand on Ronon's left shoulder. "Ronon," he said, his voice as gentle as John had ever heard it, "it's okay, you know you can trust us. Let Carson have her."

Ronon's eyes rolled Rodney's way. "Said 'can't,' McKay," he croaked hoarsely, "not 'won't.'" He looked down at Teyla, and seemed to will the fingers of his right hand to release their grip on his left wrist. He lowered that arm from around her, revealing the bandages swathing Teyla's midsection to them. And – something shiny and hard was sticking out from under the bandages. McKay uttered an oath that was more than half a prayer. John echoed it under his breath.

"Other end's in her lung. That's why you can't take her from that side." Ronon slipped his left arm under her knees. He drew a deep breath, his big frame tautening visibly. "Just get out of my way. I'll carry her to the jumper."

John opened his mouth to speak, but Carson beat him to it. "I don't think so, lad," he said, his voice both compassionate and authoritative as he gestured to two of the trauma team. They immediately moved in with a stretcher. "Ye've carried her far enough. We'll take her from here."

After the briefest of pauses, Ronon nodded his agreement. With the willing help of expert hands, he eased Teyla onto the stretcher, and then sat back again on his heels, looking utterly worn down. The trauma team lifted the stretcher with practiced smoothness and immediately started for the rear of the jumper. Beckett trotted alongside, issuing rapid-fire orders that included words like "dehydration," "bolus the fluids," and "oxygen." Ronon's glazed eyes tracked after them for a moment, then rolled back as he slipped slowly sideways.

Sheppard took an automatic step forward. But Rodney had already tightened his hold on Ronon's shoulder and planted his other hand firmly in the middle of his sagging teammate's chest, just as Radek quickly dropped to his knees and propped him up on the other side. Uttering a curt, "_He_ needs a stretcher," John started to pivot away.

"No. I can walk." Ronon's voice stopped him. "Just – somebody give me a hand up." He raised his head and pinned John with an intense look. "Go ahead and get the jumper ready to lift. I'll be right behind you."

"Yes, go, go, go." McKay pulled Ronon's left arm across his shoulders. Zelenka ducked under the right. "We've got him, go!"

John took their word for it and went. He eased his way past the huddle of medics busily working on Teyla, once again forcing himself to subjugate his deeply worried personal side to the totally focused military professional. The jumper's controls lit as he slid into the pilot's seat, the HUD coming on in response to his thought: _We need a really fast way home._ A white line traced itself from his current position to a suborbital point midway to Atlantis, back down again to the city.

For about the millionth time, Sheppard gave fervent thanks for inertial dampening. _Yeah. That's what I thought, too._

_**-Mainland-**_

Ronon would've liked to stay in the rear compartment, close to Teyla. But a firm, "You lot move on through," from Beckett quickly let him know that wasn't going to happen. He allowed McKay and Zelenka to free him from the dragging weight of the backpack, then support him to one of the jump seats in the cockpit. "Thanks," he said, giving them each a glance of sincere gratitude as they eased him down into it.

As much as his abused body urged him to let go and relax, he couldn't, not yet. He still had one more duty to discharge. "Sheppard, I need to—" An impression of sky and clouds rushing past drew his gaze to the windscreen. He tried to make his eyes focus on it, then winced at the resulting thrust of pain and dizziness stabbing through his head.

"Carson!" That was McKay, his voice strident as he turned toward the connecting doorway. "Can you spare a— Ah. Oh." Ronon got a hazy impression of Rodney backing up into the space between the front seats as a brown-haired woman carrying a med kit came into the cockpit from the rear compartment.

She bent over him, her hands already busy opening the kit and drawing things out. "Specialist Dex, I'm Doctor Julia Vernon," she said crisply. "Doctor Beckett asked me to evaluate your condition."

Ronon tried to give her his flattest, most intimidating stare. "Later. I need to talk to Colonel Sheppard."

As she ran assessing eyes over him, Doctor Vernon said imperturbably, "You can talk to the colonel after triage. Now then, that's quite a bump on your forehead. Are you experiencing any blurred or double vision? Headaches? Nausea?" She unclipped a penlight from the breast pocket of her jacket, clicked it on, and shone the beam directly into his right eye, then his left.

Ronon flinched back involuntarily. It felt as though the light was trying to set his brain on fire. Just as suddenly, his heart seemed to be beating inside his head rather than his chest. Reluctantly he admitted, "Blurred vision and headaches from the concussion. Right collarbone is cracked. No other broken bones, no internal injuries, just a lot of bruising, some of it deep muscle." He paused a beat, expecting the world to come back into focus. Instead he got the impression it was trying to slip out from under him. For the first time he noticed that the sky outside the front port was going from blue to star-speckled black. He squinted at the HUD. "What—?"

Zelenka reached across the intervening space and patted his arm reassuringly. "Fastest way is not always shortest way," he said. "Is okay, Colonel Sheppard knows what he is doing."

Ronon wanted to tell the little scientist he trusted Sheppard to do the right thing, but he wasn't able to drag his eyes away from that forward view. The blackness outside the windscreen called to the blackness building inside the back of his head. He tried to shake it away, instantly knew that had been a bad idea. Gripping the jump seat's armrests, he reminded himself of the warning he had yet to deliver. He couldn't, he _wouldn't,_ give in to any weakness until he'd done so.

Doctor Vernon was trying to wrap something around his left bicep. Ronon flexed his arm and shook her off. Leaning forward, he grabbed the arm of the pilot's chair. "Sheppard." Even to himself, his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. "Gotta tell you. . . Jumper sabotaged. . . Traitor on Atlantis. . ."

He recognized the roaring buzz spreading out from behind his eyes, stealing his vision. Having gone his absolute limit, he was about to pass out. As he felt hands on him once again, he announced to no one in particular, "Going now."

Unconsciousness took him.

_-To Be Continued-_


	11. Vanished

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 11/?

**-Chapter 11-**

_Vanished_

"_Atlantis, this is Sheppard. We have Ronon and Teyla, and are headed back to the city._"

Elizabeth put her elbows on top of her desk and dropped her forehead against her clasped hands as she blew out a quick breath. However, what John _hadn't_ said quickly tempered her relief. His omission of reporting Ronon and Teyla as "okay" meant one, or both, were injured—perhaps seriously. They were alive, though. She knew she should just be thankful for that.

Looking though her office's glass wall into the control room, she saw Chuck give her a cautious thumbs up. She put a hand up to her headset, but John spoke again before she could transmit a reply. _"Atlantis, ETA is nine minutes. Please have medical teams standing by in the jumper bay. Jumper One out."_

"'Nine minutes'?" Pushing to her feet, Elizabeth saw her own concern mirrored on Chuck's young face. She walked as swiftly as she could from her office to the control room, nodding quick confirmation for him to put the call through to the infirmary. By the time she reached him, he had already called up a tracking display on the control room's main viewing screen.

Pointing to it, he said, "It looks like Colonel Sheppard is following a suborbital trajectory back, ma'am, rather than flying straight. It'll cut their transit time way down." He exchanged a sober look with her. "Med teams are scrambling now."

"Thank you, Chuck." Her eyes tracked the fast-moving dot representing Jumper One. "Please let New Athos know they can recall their search teams. I'm going up to the bay to meet them." She patted his shoulder before turning toward the steps leading up into the jumper bay. As she set a hand on the staircase's railing, she noticed someone standing in the door to the meteorological station, and gave him a vague, automatic smile.

In response the man took a hesitant step out of the doorway. "Excuse me, ma'am?" he questioned softly. "Is everything – all right?"

She quickly composed herself, pasting on her most reassuring smile. "Yes, of course it is. Colonel Sheppard just reported that Ronon and Teyla have been found."

Something unidentifiable briefly flickered in his pale blue eyes. "Are they unharmed?"

"We'll soon know," Elizabeth told him. "They'll be here in a few minutes. I'm just on my way up to meet them."

The scientist smiled very slightly in response. "Thank you for taking time to share the news with me, Doctor Weir."

"Thank you for your concern—um. . .? I do apologize, I can't seem to recall your name."

"Payne." He spoke softly, a blush creeping up his neck. "Doctor Payne. I came here on the _Daedalus_." He retreated back into the small room under the stairs.

Elizabeth continued on up the steps, feeling slightly unsettled by the encounter. Doctor Payne had struck her as being a little intense; not much, just enough to send a prickle down the back of her neck. Of course, everyone on Atlantis knew about the upcoming wedding, was deeply concerned about the fate of Jumper Seven. . . Ah! She nearly smiled as a possible explanation occurred to her: this young scientist must have a crush on Teyla! Well, if so, he was far from the first, and probably wouldn't be the last. She dismissed the encounter from her mind in favor of more pressing concerns.

_**-Atlantis-**_

Payne withdrew into the met station. He began trembling violently, very glad he was alone at the moment. He wanted to scream in frustration, to break something, to _kill_ something—

_No one_ should have survived the sabotaged jumper's crash! Yet somehow, Emmagan and Dex still lived. He didn't understand how his careful planning could have been unsuccessful. And not just the jumper sabotage had failed of its purpose: the laboratory explosion hadn't seemed to cause any consternation among the Atlantians at all.

He forced himself to sit again, to appear outwardly calm and controlled – again. He would destroy Atlantis; he still totally believed he would succeed in his intent. But he was unable to deny that he hadn't managed to eliminate a serious threat to himself and his success. And now, Weir posed another threat. He rubbed his hands together. She was strong, she was clever, and he had, however briefly, drawn her attention to himself through his need for information. The sooner he killed her, the safer he would be.

And not just Weir. Dex and Emmagan still had to die.

He began to weave his plans anew.

_**-Atlantis-**_

Ronon drifted by degrees back into awareness of his surroundings. There was a semi-yielding surface under him, propping his head and shoulders at a slight angle, and a faintly astringent smell teasing at his nose. He felt no sharp pains, just an encompassing ache. Sounds registered next: far-off footsteps; a chair creaking; the brushing of fabric on fabric very close at hand. He made his eyes open.

It took a moment for him to accept what he saw – a partitioned-off cubicle in Atlantis's infirmary – as real. But. . . He'd been in a jumper, though, hadn't he? He was sure he'd been in a jumper, before the world started going around and around and around—

"Hey, Ronon, buddy." Sheppard's hushed voice came from his left. He turned his head in that direction to see his team leader and Doctor Weir sitting next to the gurney serving as his bed. "How're you feeling?"

After a couple of tries, he managed to croak, "Not sure how I got here." Ronon felt as though his mind was in pieces. Sheppard helped Weir stand so they could both lean over him. Movement to his right pulled his eyes to that side. McKay and Zelenka were there, looking down at him with identically anxious expressions. He rolled his head on the pillow, trying to crane his neck to see around them. Teyla – why didn't he see Teyla—?

All the scattered pieces of his mind crashed into place at once.

"_Teyla!"_

Ronon tried to hurl himself to his feet. Four pairs of hands instantly reached to restrain him. Sheppard's growled, "Quit fighting us, you'll hurt Elizabeth!" cut through his sudden panic. Muttering an incoherent apology, he eased back again at their urging.

Doctor Weir kept one hand on his left arm, the other on his shoulder as she bent over him, her green eyes warm with sympathy and concern. "Teyla's in surgery, Ronon," she said soothingly. "Since none of us can be with her, and we didn't want you waking up alone, we all came here to wait. We'd like to stay – if you don't mind?"

"Yeah, thanks, that'd be good." Ronon, looking down at the clean scrubs clothing him, realized he felt cleaner in general. He took in more details about himself. His right arm rested in a sling, while an IV fed a slow, steady drip through a taped-down needle in the back of his left hand. Sliding a quick glance at the IV bag, he saw it was more than half empty. His forehead furrowed. Evidently, he'd been out for some time. Which meant Teyla had probably been in surgery for at least—

Sheppard caught the look. "About five and a half hours," he said, answering the implicit question. "Maybe getting closer to six." His lips twitched briefly in a crooked grin as he added offhandedly, "I talked them into disconnecting you from the heart monitor a long time ago -- the beeping was kinda getting on our nerves." He hooked a foot around a leg of Weir's chair, pulling it closer to the side of the gurney, then did the same with his own. Zelenka and McKay settled again on his right. "Ronon, I hate to bring this up—" Doctor Weir put a hand on his knee as if to stop him; the colonel covered it with his own and went right on "—but right before you lost consciousness, you said something about Jumper Seven being sabotaged? That we have a traitor in Atlantis?"

With an effort, Ronon forced himself to concentrate on Sheppard's questions, rather than on wondering what was happening with Teyla. "Yeah, it's the only thing that makes sense. I know the jumpers all get thorough, routine checks. There's no way ours could have gone that bad that fast without its being tampered with. I know for sure it wasn't pilot error." He met the colonel's eyes earnestly. "Lieutenant Johnson fought to the very end to bring us down safely, or at least close enough to the mainland to give us a fighting chance." His voice went raspy. "If he has any family on Earth, they need to know he died a hero. You," he had to pause to swallow the lump in his throat, "you found him?"

Sheppard nodded and looked quickly away, his jaw muscles tightening. Beside him, Weir blinked away tears. "We did. He'll be going home on the _Daedalus_'s next trip. And -- I'll make sure his family knows what you said." He sucked a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck. "So now we have a traitor _and_ a Wraith to contend with. This galaxy really goes in for the two-for-one specials."

Ronon frowned and pushed up into a sitting position, grimacing slightly as his stiffened muscles protested the effort. "Wraith? What Wraith?" He looked from face to face. "Here in _Atlantis?"_

Weir very precisely folded her hands together. "I thought we had agreed not to trouble Ronon with this just now." She gave Sheppard a pointed look. He returned it, looking unfazed and determined.

"Hm, well, that does solve the problem of how a Wraith could have sabotaged a jumper _and_ a lab." McKay leaned back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. He gestured widely, then dropped his hands to rest on his thighs again. "It couldn't have done so. However, it doesn't explain how a Wraith got _into_ the city in the first place, or how it's eluded our internal sensor sweeps." He caught Weir's transferred stare. "What?" He sounded genuinely bewildered. "We're helping to distract the man!"

"It's okay," Ronon said as Weir threw her hands up and rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Really." He meant it, too. Now Teyla's wellbeing was in other hands than his, he knew that without something to distract him from his worry, he would soon be kicking holes in the walls. Or tearing chunks out of them. He drew his left leg up so he could rest his forearm across his knee. "Now, what Wraith?"

He listened intently as Sheppard gave him a concise summary of recent events on Atlantis. At the end, he asked, "Do you think it's been hibernating in one of the water-damaged parts of the city ever since the attack, and only recently woke up?"

Weir sighed, apparently giving in, and said, "It's true there are parts of the city where the sensor network is down. And Carson did say Doctor Sharapov was in the habit of going off on his own."

"If he ventured into the wrong place at the wrong time. . ." Zelenka pushed his glasses up on his nose and let his voice trail off.

Ronon briefly locked eyes with Sheppard, and nodded slightly. The colonel tipped his head back in subtle acknowledgment and said, "Now we know it's here, we'll find it and get rid of it. I'm more concerned about our traitor problem."

It was getting harder and harder to sit quietly. Without realizing it, Ronon began tensely flexing the fingers of his left hand. "I know you've got procedures now to look for things like what Caldwell had. But maybe the Trust has slipped in somebody who's willing to work for them without a—" He made a couple of vague passes with his left hand over the back of his neck, the IV line flopping along his arm. Returning to his former position, he absently resumed opening and closing his fist. The back of his hand pinched and stung around the taped-down needle, but he ignored it.

Weir's eyes flickered to his hand and away again. "It's a possibility. We certainly know it's a well-documented fact how _dominating_ the Goa'uld can be. Though," she slid a look Sheppard's way, "I _do_ hate to think our security screening is _so_ fallible."

"Or maybe somebody has just gone nuts," Zelenka put in with a shrug. "As we all know, this is not exactly low-stress environment."

Ronon saw McKay open his mouth, the expression on his face portending some blighting comment. At that moment, the sound of slow, scuffing footsteps approaching reached his ears. Dread shivered through him. Throwing off his covers so he could swing his legs over the left side of the gurney, he stood, eyes fixed on the screened off opening to the improvised cubicle.

"Ronon?" Sheppard and Weir were on their feet too, as were McKay and Zelenka on the other side of the gurney, worried eyes on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Weir half-extend a hand toward him. "What is it?"

"Someone's coming." He couldn't keep the hoarseness from his voice. They all heard it now. Ronon saw tenseness stiffen their stances. Weir edged closer to Sheppard, who put an arm around her shoulders. Seemingly unaware of doing so, McKay reached out and clenched a fistful of the discarded blanket. Ronon's heart began to pound in hard, fast beats as his chest tightened.

The footsteps paused, just on the other side of the movable screen now. Ronon was certain he heard someone sigh deeply. Somewhere deep in his gut denial built to a nearly unbearable level, a passionate desire not to have to hear, or deal with, what he feared was coming. He made himself stand still, every muscle rock hard with the effort.

Doctor Beckett, still in his blood-spattered surgical scrubs, stepped around into view and halted. He looked first at Sheppard and Weir on Ronon's left; then to McKay and Zelenka beyond the gurney on his right. "Doc—" Against his will, the single syllable wrenched itself out of Ronon, when all he really wanted to scream was _No!_

Beckett, his long face lengthened even further by weariness, turned sad blue eyes in his direction. "Och, lad," he said, his soft Scots burr even more pronounced than usual, "we lost her—"

A red haze of grief and rage blotted out everything and everyone around him. Ronon retained just enough presence of mind to bring his left hand up to his right so he could claw the IV needle free, flinging it aside. Then, heedless of the voices calling his name, like some wounded creature seeking the solitude in which to die, he succumbed to the urge to _run._

On some dim level, as he ran almost blindly through the halls of Atlantis, he noticed a few gaping faces here and there turning in surprise as he sprinted past. The first time he nearly tripped on a set of stairs, he tore off the sling inhibiting his balance and angrily threw it away. His sides and legs began to burn, his knees to ache, his lungs to cry out desperately for air. Still, he didn't stop, pausing only as long as it took to open any doors blocking his way. His heart, bursting with the agony of his loss, forced him onward until he finally staggered once, then again. He tried to regain his footing, but exhaustion weakened his reflexes. He collapsed to his knees. Only then did he realize he was actually outside the city, midway along one of its piers.

Chest heaving, Ronon knelt with bowed head, arms wrapped around his midriff. He shuddered uncontrollably with shock and disbelief. Sweat slicked his skin and glued his scrubs to his body. The ocean breeze blew cool across him, but he didn't feel it. His inner chill rendered inconsequential the outer.

_Why? Why? Why?_ Throwing back his head, he stared up at the clear, thickly starred sky above him. Behind and to either side of him soared the towers of Atlantis, glowing golden and white with inner light. Scarcely realizing what he did, he shook his head in denial. How could such a thing still exist when beauty itself had just died? A cry of equal parts fiery rage and bitter pain irresistibly swelled within him. But when he opened his mouth, all that escaped his throat was a ragged sob.

"Teyla—" He choked on her name. "Teyla, my love, my almost wife—"

Brokenly slumping forward, Ronon shut his eyes against a world gone empty, and wept.

_-To Be Continued-_


	12. Instinct

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 12/?

**-Chapter 12-**

_Instinct_

"_Ronon!"_ The multi-voiced cry died into stunned silence following the big man's incredibly fast escape. John took half a step forward, but checked up when Elizabeth turned to him, threw her arms around him, and bowed her head against his shoulder.

Beckett blinked in astonishment, and said, "Now, what did the lad go and do that for?"

McKay, who'd been leaning heavily on the abandoned gurney, snapped his head up to glare at him. "Oh, I don't know, Carson," he snarled. "Maybe because you just told him Teyla is _dead?"_ His voice cracked on the final word. Behind him, Zelenka took off his glasses and put the back of his hand over his eyes.

"But she isn't! Dead, I mean. Aye, she coded a couple of times, and the lass is still very, very critical, but—"

"_Teyla's alive?"_ John looked from the rattled Beckett down into his wife's tear-filled but suddenly hopeful eyes. "I gotta go after him," he told her, quickly but carefully putting her out of his way. Hastily he pushed past Carson into the open part of the infirmary, eyes sweeping from left to right.

About twenty feet away, a nurse stood pressed flat against a light-inset wall, her head turned away from him as she stared to her left. Her shocked pose said clearly as words, _He went thataway._ She must have caught his movement out of the corner of her eye, because she suddenly turned her head to look straight at him. "Colonel," she said, her voice tight with urgency, "he's bleeding out." She pointed down.

A trail of bright red splatters stood out vividly against the pale flooring. John nodded a quick acknowledgment as he loped swiftly past her, and reached up to slap his headset on. "Tower, this is Sheppard: I'm in the infirmary, scan for a life sign moving very fast away from my position."

"Roger that, Colonel," a brisk female British voice came back. "Scanning now, sir – one fast-moving life sign is heading steadily down and eastward from your current position."

"Copy that. Let me know of any sudden changes. Sheppard out." He launched into a flat-out run, thinking, _Okay, he's got a good start on me, but he's nowhere near one hundred percent. And he's losing blood. I'll catch him._ But more than ten minutes of hard running with no glimpse of his Satedan teammate forced him to add, _Yeah, right, I'll catch him – maybe when he stops._

The blood trail, much sparser now, led to a final set of tall doors which loomed in front of him. Beyond them, he knew, lay the eastern pier. As Sheppard swiped a hand over the controls to open them, a dreadful thought struck: an image of Ronon swimming through the dark water, away from the city; swimming toward the horizon, until even those powerful arms faltered and failed. He pushed it away as hard as he could. _Oh, crap, no. No. He wouldn't do _that, _Ronon isn't the type to suicide, no, no, no!_ A fresh surge of adrenaline sent him rushing out into the vast open space.

Slowing his steps while he waited for his night vision to adjust, John called, "Ronon? Ronon!" Nothing, just a breeze blowing ocean sounds softly past his ear. "Ronon, answer me! _Ronon!"_ He walked farther out onto the pier, able to see more details now. He scanned from side to side, anxiety a hard and growing knot inside him.

There! Against the bright swath of stars tumbling from zenith to horizon, his eyes picked up a huddled, out-of-place silhouette. Relief sweeping through him, he made his tired legs jog in its direction. He stopped a few paces away, huffing; leaned over to grasp his knees; and got right to the point. "Teyla's alive, Ronon."

He had his full night-sight now. He saw Ronon shake his head, a sharp, violent motion. "Don't lie to me, Sheppard!" Even with his voice thickened by tears, the man sounded very much like the unbelievably dangerous Runner he once had been. "Beckett said he lost her!"

Sheppard put all the force of his years of command into his next words. "You should know by now, Ronon, I don't lie to my people. I'm not lying now." Taking a chance he wouldn't get decked, John moved a couple of steps closer before hunkering down just behind Ronon's left shoulder. "Yes, it's true Beckett lost her. And also true, he was able to revive her. She's still in critical condition, but Teyla _is_ alive."

A long minute passed; stretched into two, then three and four. By the dim light spilling out to them from the city, John watched Ronon. Just as he wondered if he'd even been heard, Ronon abruptly spoke, still without looking around, his voice barely louder than the murmurous suck and slap of the ever-moving ocean.

"At times, over the past few days, I wondered—" He interrupted himself with another fierce headshake. When he began again, the words came louder and faster, but sounded disjointed. "She was hurt so bad. . .and then the fever started. . .and it seemed _nothing_ I did was going to be enough to save her. . . Maybe the past _can't_ be changed. Maybe – time – will always find a way somehow to twist the future back to what _should_ have been— Do you know what I mean, Sheppard?" His deep voice cracked.

John felt every hair on his body stand straight out. He knew all too well what his teammate was trying to say. In that other past, Teyla had died -- and so had Elizabeth. Ronon had been spared from losing Teyla a year ago -- or would it have been about now? John's mind spun as he tried to put the temporal paradox in perspective -- by the Dex who'd defied time itself to save the woman he loved. Nor had Dex's been the only sacrifice made. There'd been another Sheppard as well, who'd bought with his own life everything John now cherished. If, after all else, it were _Elizabeth_ barely holding on to life— And if Ronon had it right, it could be, all too soon. Even with the best medical care possible, women still died in childbirth. . .didn't they?

"Yeah, I know what you mean," John admitted in a low voice. His gaze turned inward as he stared for a long moment into the face of his own personal demon. He shivered once all over before resolutely pushing it away and saying more strongly, "And I'm not buying it. Look, Ronon, life in this galaxy -- life _anywhere_ -- is risky enough without believing some cosmic force is out to get us. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life with Elizabeth looking over my shoulder for an imaginary boogieman to come grab her away from me, when there are enough _real_ boogiemen for me to worry about. Do _you_ know what _I_ mean?"

Another long moment passed while Ronon stared out over the endlessly moving water toward the dark horizon: wrestling his own demon, John guessed. And winning, as he finally released a long, shaky breath, his body subtly relaxing as the tension left it. Raising both hands, Ronon swiped the tears from his face and nodded before turning his head to look at Sheppard.

John reached out and grasped his friend's shoulder with a man's hard comfort. "C'mon, buddy," he said. "Let's get back to the infirmary."

_**-Atlantis-**_

Weir, McKay, Zelenka, and Beckett stood grouped together just outside the infirmary doors, gazing down the hallway with anxious expressions. Ronon felt a little jerk of apprehension zing through him, until a reassuring smile lit Weir's face. At the same moment he noticed the two scientists' body language relax. Beckett visibly heaved a sigh of relief, and stepped forward to meet him.

"Lad, I am so incredibly, incredibly sorry," he said before anyone else could speak.

Looking down into the doctor's tired blue eyes, Ronon found it impossible to hold a grudge. "'S okay, Doc," he replied. "I didn't wait to hear everything you had to say." He glanced diffidently down at his feet and up again. "Um – I know she isn't conscious, but— I mean, could I—"

Carson nodded. "Aye, of course, for a wee bit. I'll take you to her."

First, though, the others closed around him. McKay, inarticulate as always in such moments, clapped Ronon on his uninjured arm, giving it a little shake. Zelenka looked up with his shy, tight-lipped smile as he offered an encouraging nod. But Weir surprised him the most. Stepping right up to him, she stretched on tiptoe to brush his cheek with a gentle kiss, patting his good shoulder as she drew back again.

"We'll go now. Try to get some rest," she said. "If you need us for anything, just call."

The good kind of tears prickled behind Ronon's eyes as he looked down into hers. With simple sincerity he said, "Thanks. I will." He shifted his gaze from one to another of them, his eyes coming to rest last on Sheppard. "Thanks again – for everything."

The corners of his mouth quirking upward slightly, Sheppard returned his look with one of complete understanding. He put an arm around Weir's shoulders as they, Zelenka, and McKay turned to walk slowly away from the infirmary.

Beckett touched his elbow lightly. "This way, lad," he said. He paused briefly to take Ronon's left wrist, turning the back of the hand toward him. "Aye, and while we're about it, we'll get that hand cleaned up again. Can't be too careful, y'know."

Glancing down, Ronon saw dried blood streaking the back of his hand where he'd yanked out the IV needle, and marring the scrubs he wore. Although he wanted nothing more than to go straight back to Teyla, he curbed his impatience while Beckett swabbed his hand with alcohol. At the same time, the doctor remarked conversationally, "You did good immobilizin' that piece of conduit like that, keepin' it from wagglin' around and doin' more damage." Ronon shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to say. He vainly tried to stifle a wince when the right one reminded him of the cracked collarbone on that side; got a flash of knowing blue eyes and a, "We'll rustle up a new sling for you before too long. But for now—" He ushered Ronon through to the intensive care part of the infirmary.

Coming from just beyond a movable screen, Ronon heard the slow, steady beep of a heart monitor punctuating a soft whooshing sound. He wasn't sure whether to be glad or sorry when Beckett voluntarily held back, letting him round the partition and take the last few steps to Teyla's bedside alone.

At first her petite form seemed lost, overwhelmed by wires, and electrodes, and tubes, and needles, and things he couldn't even name. Blinking hard, he made himself focus only on _her_. Though still very pale, cheeks and eyes sunken by her ordeal, her face no longer had that ashen undertone. Gone, too, was the haggard stamp of constant pain. He bent so he could rest his right forearm carefully along the top of her pillow. With his left hand, he brushed back with shaking fingers an errant strand of hair caught on the breathing tube protruding from her mouth. Tracing the delicate lines of jaw and chin and throat, he trailed his fingertips along her left collarbone, across her bare shoulder, down her arm to close his large hand gently on her small one. Very carefully, he raised it to his lips and held it there.

Ronon had no idea how long it was before he sensed Beckett come up beside him. Pressing a final kiss on each slender, unresponsive finger, he tenderly laid Teyla's hand at her side again. He reluctantly straightened. "I know, I have to go," he mumbled without looking around at the doctor. "But – I don't want to."

Beckett's hand closed on his shoulder with a grip gentler than Sheppard's, but no less comforting. "I know, lad," he said kindly. "That's why I've had a wee place fixed up for you just around the corner here." He led the way past another of the privacy screens and pointed to the made-up gurney behind it. A fresh set of scrubs lay folded on top of the light green blanket, along with the promised sling.

Unaccountably, Ronon felt his throat tighten up again. Or maybe, if he were honest, he could account for it: even after all this time, he still wasn't used to the sheer _goodheartedness_ of these people. "Doc," he said, "you're amazing. Thank you."

"Aye, well, we'll be checkin' on Teyla through the night. Don't be surprised if someone gives you a look-in as well." With a final weary smile and nod, Beckett left.

Ronon changed out of his bloodied scrubs, then eased his arm into the sling. He couldn't resist taking one more look at Teyla around the edge of the screen, as if it were somehow necessary to imprint an image of her fragile beauty on his mind. At last he turned away, going to the gurney and stretching out gratefully on it. He closed his eyes, holding the mental picture of his betrothed at the front of his mind. Listening to the soft but reassuringly steady beeping of the heart monitor, he slipped gradually into a shallow doze.

Periodically, soft footsteps and rustlings next door roused him to just enough awareness to let him catalog them as normal and expected. One time he heard a hushed female voice ask a question from a distance; another, equally hushed but much closer replied in a lilting accent, "Dead to the world, the poor sweet man, an' no more than he should be after all he's been through. . ."

A quiver of amusement went through him as the voice faded beyond the dividing screen. _Actually, not so much, but close enough._ Shifting onto his left side, he let himself drift again. . .

. . .Came fully awake, eyes snapping open as his heart went into high gear.

_Something was wrong._

Even as he got silently up from the gurney, Ronon searched his mind, seeking for a memory of whatever had roused him so suddenly. _Footsteps, soft footsteps approaching, halting, but no other sounds: just – footsteps._ On bare feet, he crossed to the privacy screen and eased an eye around the edge.

A man stood on the far side of Teyla's bed, gazing down at her.

Every protective instinct at full, hair-triggered alert, Ronon rose to his full, intimidating height as he stepped into the man's view. "Can I help you with something?" he growled.

The stranger looked up quickly, took two hasty steps back in obvious shock. "Specialist – Dex! You – you startled me."

Ronon belatedly registered the white coat the man was wearing. Immediately he relaxed his threatening stance. "Uh, sorry, Doctor," he said, feeling sheepish. "I, uh, was just sleeping back there." He waved a vague hand.

Sounding slightly breathless, the doctor said, "Evidently we gave each other a scare. I apologize for waking you." He shoved both hands into his coat pockets and started to turn away.

Ronon flicked a glance from him to Teyla, and back again. "But don't you need to finish what you came to do, Doctor—?"

"Payne." The man gave him a thin smile. "I came on the _Daedalus_. Thank you, but I only came to check on Ms. Emmagan's O-two levels. They are quite good. So sorry to have disturbed you. Good night." With that, he was gone.

Slightly unsettled, Ronon padded a few steps after him, irrationally tempted to follow. A muffled burst of laughter from the nurse's station down the hall dissuaded him. He moved to look down at Teyla, still resting deeply and peacefully in drug-induced sleep. Very carefully, because she still looked so frail, he stroked her hair, her face, her slender arms. Her smooth skin felt much cooler and less dry than it had when her fever had gotten so high. Sternly resisting the urge to gather her into the shelter of his arms, he brushed his lips from the corner of her mouth opposite the breathing tube, across her cheek to her ear, then down her neck to her shoulder.

Reluctantly, he forced himself to go lie down again on the gurney. But sleep eluded him for the rest of the night. He stayed wide awake, wondering why the hair on the back of his neck still wanted to prickle.

_-To Be Continued-_


	13. Light

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 13/?

**-Chapter 13-**

_Light_

Silence: Unending, intolerable, unanticipated _silence_. He had never experienced such a thing; never even imagined it could exist. Now it echoed inside his head. For what seemed like a much longer time than what had actually passed, he had lived without the constant whispering awareness of nest-brothers or drones, without the strong, permeating presence of the Hive Queen brushing his thoughts—

Sometimes his mind felt as though it were shattering under the weight of that silence.

Sometimes, such as now in the abandoned bowels of the city, he screamed out his frustration and his hate.

He had not understood the silence at first, the reason for it or its permanence. He still found inconceivable the obliteration of not only his Hive and Queen, but of four others. It should not have happened! The formerly dominant Ancient race had _fled_ before his kind, yielding the galaxy to Wraith control. That the puny beings now inhabiting their city could not only withstand, but actually _defeat_ the massed might of five Hives: unthinkable.

Yet the endless silence forced him to think of it, to dwell on it, unceasingly.

In the aftermath of the disaster, he had waited for other Hives to come and crush these foreign upstarts. Secure in the knowledge he now possessed, knowledge of the way to the rich feeding ground of Earth and the teeming new galaxy beyond, he anticipated the welcome and honor he would receive from a new Queen. But as time passed, and no avenging Hives came, his certainty wavered; weakened; waned. And in its passing, rage soon rose up to fill the void.

So be it, then. By not taking up the challenge, all other remaining Hives proved themselves unworthy of what he could have granted them. Let them scrounge and fight over the dregs of their old feeding grounds, and _starve_. In just a matter of days _he,_ and he alone, would satiate himself with the life forces of Earth. Even now, the hunger grew and burned within him.

And yet – his last feeding had been, unexpectedly and unpleasantly, most unsatisfying in all respects. Of course, it had been the first time he'd been able to feed in more than a year; and his prey had been weak to the point of tastelessness. Still, a frisson of fear shivered through him, too strong to ignore. His Queen had not anticipated failure when she'd formulated her plan and set it in motion. Perhaps there were – other – unanticipated consequences she'd not foreseen; consequences inherent in what he'd allowed to be done to him that were just now manifesting themselves.

Or, the insidious thought slithered out of his deepest fears, perhaps she _had_ known, and simply hadn't cared, considering him expendable when weighed against her objectives. He hissed angrily at such betrayal, his body contorting in pain. The movement brought his face down almost level with the device he was building, an ugly, mongrel melding of technologies. The Wraith heart of it he'd brought with him. It had taken a long, long time for him to modify it from its original purpose to suit his present intent, hampered as he was by his lack of access to proper lab facilities. Also Wraith were most of the other elements comprising it, which he'd only acquired recently. Crude as it was, it would serve well enough – oh, yes, well enough indeed.

The hiss became a laugh. He straightened, passing a caressing hand over the construct's ungainly contours. Soon, very soon, it would be complete. And when it was, he would inflict his demoralizing revenge on the loathsome denizens of Atlantis, just before he slammed the gateway to Earth forever shut behind him.

**-Atlantis-**

McKay and Zelenka waited until they were approaching the transporter before they both rounded purposefully on Sheppard, bringing him – as well as Elizabeth, and the Marines shadowing all of them – to a halt. Predictably it was McKay got his mouth open first to speak.

"You've got to take a jumper up, the sooner the better," he said, the jump-to-it note John found so particularly galling in his voice.

Fortunately for the Canadian, John was too tired and emotionally spent to do more than glare at him. It was Elizabeth who repeated, "Take a jumper up? Now? Why?"

"To scan parts of city not covered by sensors." In his haste to beat Rodney to the punch, Radek dropped the articles from his sentence. "Is true, jumper sensors do not differentiate between human and Wraith signatures, but—"

"Yes, yes, yes, let's waste time restating the obvious," Rodney loudly interrupted, earning an aggravated glare from the Czech. "True, I probably should have suggested this earlier, but with the – the situation," he waved back toward the infirmary as he stumbled slightly over the words, "with Teyla and Ronon, not to mention the delta-one already having been issued—"

Impatience flared through Sheppard; did the man really believe he was the only one capable of rational thought? Without bothering to hide his irritation, John cut him off with a growled, "It's been done, McKay." And as both scientists gaped at him blankly, showing no signs of moving, "Ex_cuse_ us, but some of us would like to go get a little rest now, while we can." He started to guide Elizabeth around them.

Rodney, and Radek as well, looked equally blindsided. "But who— What— I mean, when—"

John felt as if his last nerve were being twanged. The muscles in the arm he had resting around his wife's shoulders went rigid as his whole body stiffened. He wanted to keep going without answering – except he knew Rodney was perfectly capable of following them to their quarters, demanding explanations all the way. So when Elizabeth, ever the diplomat, balked slightly under his encircling arm, he just clenched his jaw and let her deal with it.

"I ordered Major Lorne to perform the scan while you were all on the mainland looking for Teyla and Ronon," she said, a note of firm finality in her voice. "He finished just before you got back to the city, but didn't find even a trace of a life sign where it didn't belong."

His smugness deflated by her words, McKay's shoulders sagged briefly, chin dropping almost to his chest. Zelenka's forehead furrowed, his expression going abstracted. Feeling more malicious pleasure than he knew he should, John waited. At the precise moment Rodney's head snapped up again and Radek pointed a finger upward, eyes focused again, he administered his _coup de grace_. "Lorne and Cadman are drawing up a plan for a city-wide security sweep – including all areas that can't _be_ scanned due to heavy shielding. In fact," he raised his left arm with a flourish so he could check his large black timepiece, "they probably finished hours ago, and are resting up before the operation commences. Which is what I _and_ our escorts need to be doing, since it's going to be a _long_ – several – days."

Zelenka at least looked abashed as he dropped his hand and stepped back out of the way, giving his fellow scientist's sleeve a sharp jerk at the same time. McKay audibly gulped back whatever else he wanted to say, substituting a muttered, "Well, that's good, then."

John's overwhelming desire to get Elizabeth to the quiet and privacy of their rooms resurfaced, canceling any desire he had to bait Rodney further. He silently swiped the transporter's door controls with his left hand and steered her inside. No one spoke until they arrived at the corridor leading to senior staff quarters, when he gave the two Marines a quick nod and a quiet, "Thanks, guys – dismissed."

It was Elizabeth who bade the pair of subdued scientists a muted, "Good night." With what felt like the last of his self-control, John refrained from hustling her at a pace that would be uncomfortable for her to the familiar door that, while so close, still seemed somehow so far away. He sensed her concern over his mood; it provided yet another goad to haste he had to resist. In an effort to distract himself, he began mentally counting down the number of steps left before they could be alone: _. . .seven. . .six. . .five. . ._

. . .Which summoned unwelcome musings that still occasionally haunted him: What had been that other John Sheppard's thoughts in his final seconds of life? In the deepest, most private corners of his mind, he suspected the images _he_ would have chosen to fill his mind while waiting for death to take him might be uncannily similar to what his older, sadder self _had_ chosen. . .

". . .John? John, what is it? Darling, what's wrong?"

Elizabeth's voice called him back to awareness of his surroundings. He realized he was standing just inside the closed doors of their quarters, although he had no conscious memory of arriving there. Elizabeth had turned in the circle of his right arm to face him. She was looking up at him anxiously, both her hands gripping his shoulders, her lovely jade green eyes probing his face.

He wasn't good with words, with talking about feelings; and he knew she was okay with that. Only sometimes, like now, John wished he did have the ability to articulate the emotions swelling up from his heart and filling his throat, choking him with their intensity.

"Nothing's wrong," he managed to get out. "I – just want. . ." He paused to swallow hard, trying to clear a way for the words to come out. Unashamed, he felt his eyes grow wet as he gazed down into hers. "I – just – _need_—"

Giving up the effort, John did what he'd yearned to do ever since returning with Ronon from the east pier. He wrapped his arms around the woman he loved, the mother of his child, and strained her to him with a carefully fierce, protective tenderness, as he used his body to express all the things he couldn't say.

**-Atlantis-**

Lost, she was lost in a vast, dark, endless sea of pain. It clogged her throat and lungs, stealing her breath. It was fast becoming the entirety of her existence, drowning her memories of any other. Somewhere there had to be light and comfort, relief and ease; but it was growing harder and harder to hold on to her belief. The scattered flickers of assurance she had that love, joy, _life_ still existed beyond the pain and blackness were fading, sucked down into the never-ending, lightless agony holding her submerged in its unbearable depths. . .

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the tides of pain receded to a lower level, though the dark remained. It confused her. She thought she tried to move, but her strengthless limbs were unresponsive. She thought she tried to call out into the dark, but she had no voice. Exhausted, she gave up, retreating from an effort beyond her ability to sustain. Doubt washed through her. Perhaps – just perhaps – she truly _had_ drowned, and no longer had a living body in the real world to anchor her soul. Perhaps the Ancestors were displeased with her for no longer adhering so strictly to her people's beliefs, and this was their judgment upon her.

_Halling,_ the name drifted from the deep parts of her mind like a bubble, _will be pleased to have been right—_

She drifted, rising and sinking slowly through the darkness, swirling on its disorienting currents. Once she thought she felt hands on her body: Were her people preparing her for her burial? Would they deem her worthy of a Ring Ceremony? Or, if she had in truth been rejected by the Ancestors, would the new Atlantians with whom she'd thrown in her lot use their alien rites to mark her passing? Somehow, she could not find it in her to be horrified at the possibility.

She drifted. Once she thought she sensed a menacing presence hovering near her, making the darkness shiver with its ill intent. But almost instantly, another presence was there as well – this one strong and protective, banishing the other, the – demon?

_Ronon._ Another name floated tantalizingly through her mind. _Ronon. Ronon._ It became almost a chant, a talisman against this dark afterlife she found herself floating through. And with the name came a sensation of touch, of fingers lightly stroking her hair, her face, tracing her arms from shoulders down to hands, and back again; of warm lips barely touching her skin—

_Ronon._ Had he come to say a last goodbye to her, his almost-wife?

The comforting impression of his presence faded, along with the sense of his touch. The darkness seemed even emptier than before as she drifted, endlessly, drifted down, deeper and deeper. . .

So gradually she failed at first to notice it, light began pressing gently against her eyelids. She yearned toward it with all her being, though the darkness seemed loath to release her. The brightness grew, pushing back the dark, drawing her on. She thought she heard voices coming from the light; familiar voices she'd never expected to hear again.

She couldn't resist the lure of it; didn't _want_ to resist. With every last shred of will she possessed, Teyla reached out for the light as the blackness greyed and wisped away from her, stretching toward it—

She broke through.

_-To Be Continued-_


	14. Revelations

Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 14/?

**IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Whoo! I made it, just 3 days short of it having been 7 months since the last update was posted to _Shattered_! Again, sincere apologies to everyone who has been wondering if this fic was EVER going to be updated, let alone finished. Please see the author's note at the beginning of Chapter 1 for a fuller explanation of why this has been so long in coming. Also, please, _please,_ PLEASE go back and read Chapters 1 through 13 before reading this newest chapter. For reasons also explained in the aforementioned author's note, if you don't, you're going to be very, very lost. I think I made the right decision in revising this fic. Please feed an author, and let me know what you think, but be kind – no flames!

**-Chapter 14-**

_Revelations_

Teyla made her eyes open. By concentrating very hard, she tried to absorb what she saw, even though her eyes exhibited a disturbing tendency to sag shut again. She fought to keep her eyelids slitted to the merest crack as her gaze drifted from one side to the other of her limited range of vision. And her first marginally clear thought was that the afterlife looked very much like Atlantis's infirmary.

A woman's face seemed to hang over her for a bleary moment, but was gone again before she could make an effort to identify it. She blinked slowly. Perhaps she had only imagined it. Perhaps her waking was equally imaginary, since everything seemed so far away, separated from her by layers of unreality. But real or not, at least it was a change from the dark.

"Teyla. Teyla." A man's voice spoke her name very near her, softly yet insistently. Her head turned ever so slightly toward the sound, but she couldn't see who called her. She realized her eyes were closed once more. How annoying: when had that happened?

"Teyla, luv, can ye hear me?"

_Of course I do_, she told him, or she thought she did. _You are speaking into my ear_.

"Teyla," the voice coaxed even as it commanded, "lass, open your eyes and look at me."

In response, her eyelids sluggishly lifted. She blinked confusedly up at an anxious face that, though familiar, was somehow not the one she'd expected to see. _Carson_. Teyla felt her lips shape the name, but soundlessly. She tried again, and this time her voice made it out of her sore throat as a hoarse croak. "Carson."

Beckett's expression brightened. "Aye, lass. Can ye tell me how you're feelin'?"

Teyla considered his question carefully, though it was hard to keep her mind from drifting back into its previous languor. She felt. . . She felt. . . How _should_ she feel? She looked helplessly at the doctor's expectant face, and said the one thing she was sure of. "I – it hurts to speak." To underscore her words, she slowly slid her right hand from where it rested on her diaphragm, up along her body until she could lightly press her fingers to her throat. . .

. . .And went very still as the world abruptly became much more up close and real around her. _She could move her right arm again!_ She gasped reflexively in surprise, then unconsciously tensed against the agony she expected to follow.

It didn't come. She perceived instead only a deep soreness where before there had been nearly unbearable pain. Her eyes went wide in shock. Cautiously, she inhaled, testing the limits of this rediscovered freedom to breathe.

Carson nodded at her encouragingly. "Aye, we got that beastly bit of crystal out of your lung," he said. "I'm glad to say you're doin' marvelously well, all things considered."

Teyla cocked her head slightly on her pillow. Her earlier confusion returned, as if time had sprinted ahead of her, leaving her to catch up as best she could. _All_ what _things considered_? she wanted to ask, but never got the chance. An overwhelming flood of memories swept through her mind: disjointed in places, fogged over with intense suffering in most others; yet all holding at their centers a very tall, immensely strong, endlessly patient and loving man. Immediately but injudiciously she tried to push herself higher on the gurney/bed as she wildly looked around for him. A breath-snatching stab of pain made her subside again even before Carson could reach to restrain her. Grabbing his arm with strengthless fingers, she gasped one frantic word, the name she'd clung to in the annihilating dark. "Ronon!"

A deep voice said, "I'm here, love." And suddenly he _was_ there – occupying the space Beckett quickly vacated by stepping aside, giving her that quirky little grin he only ever used with her. Teyla's vision blurred: with relief, she thought, until she felt the warm wetness of tears sliding down her cheeks. As if of their own will, her arms extended towards him as she repeatedly whispered, "Ronon, oh, Ronon, oh, my _love!_"

He reached for her at the same time, easing his big hands carefully under her shoulders as he bent to embrace her. Teyla wrapped her arms around his neck, relishing the solid, warm realness of him, only dimly hearing Carson say in remonstrance, "Steady, lad, steady, ye maun be careful yet of this tubing, and those leads – _and_ the sheet—!"

Teyla felt Ronon's body quiver where it pressed against hers. Though she couldn't be sure, she thought he chuckled the barely audible words, "For a little while longer, at least, my almost-wife," into her ear. As he drew away from her, his lips and beard and dreadlocks brushing slowly across the exposed skin of her shoulder, he added in a louder voice, "I _am_ being careful with the sheet, Doc." Without taking his eyes off hers, he reached up to catch her left hand with his, circumspectly placed her arm across her breast to secure the sheet covering her chastely in place, and winked.

He would have released her hand then, but Teyla held onto his with both of hers, gazing at him as if she needed to relearn his features. It warmed her, heart and soul, to see him in such high spirits. Yet despite the teasingly provocative sparkle in his deep green eyes, she also saw how the sockets around them were shadow stained, the cheekbones below more prominent as well. A half-healed cut centered a yellowing bruise, marring his hairline. Her gaze dropped lower, to where his coarsely woven shirt gapped away from the base of his neck. Beneath the fabric, a smooth, black, snug-fitting alien something showed, curving over his shoulders. Puzzled, she raised her right hand and brushed tentative fingers over it.

Another memory fragment surfaced: firelight flickering across Ronon; waves hissing onto sand somewhere nearby; sharp smells of salt, and smoke, and Earth-made antiseptics prickling at her nose. She nodded and whispered as if to herself, "I remember – you broke your collarbone in the crash. And still you carried me. . ." Her voice quivered and faded at the thought of the pain he must have endured, her eyes once again filling with tears.

Ronon put his free hand on her waist as he bent for a swift kiss. "No way I was leaving you." His eyes darkened briefly before the teasing twinkle returned. "And it isn't broken, just cracked. I'm only wearing this brace thing because Doc Beckett insists."

"It's a figure-eight clavicle _splint_," Carson corrected genially as he came around a privacy screen towards them; only then did Teyla realize that he'd left them alone. "And ye'll be thankin' me for it later, laddie. Now then, luv," he stopped at the foot of the gurney and scrutinized Teyla closely, "do ye feel up for a bit more company?"

Teyla reluctantly looked away from her betrothed's face. "Yes, of course. Who—?" Beyond Carson's shoulder, she saw Atlantis's leaders peeking around the edge of the screen. Her lips curved into a welcoming smile. "John – Elizabeth."

Elizabeth smiled warmly in return as she came fully into the cubicle, saying as she did, "Teyla, it's so good to have you back with us." John, however, just shook his head sadly as he followed a couple of steps behind her.

"I am shocked," he said on an exaggerated sigh, "absolutely shocked by the blatant fraternization occurring right here in front of me— In front of Beckett— In front of Elizabeth! Where's the discipline, where's the discretion, where's the—"

"Hey," Ronon interrupted as he casually straightened, "I'm just following my commander's example."

Colonel Sheppard grinned and jerked his chin up, as if in acknowledgment of a clean hit, then peered over his wife's shoulder at Teyla. "You look," he paused a second before pronouncing, "better."

"Everyone in Atlantis is very glad to hear how well you're both doing," Elizabeth said. "So many people have come up to us asking for news so often these last few days, we've nearly resorted to giving Ronon and Teyla updates over city-wide. The whole city was very distressed, you know, when we realized Jumper Seven was missing."

Teyla's chest tightened with affection for these dear friends; and sorrow as she recalled the death of the young Marine who'd been their pilot. "Thank you," she replied. "It is – very good to see both of you again." She paused for a few quick, shallow breaths. "I deeply regret Lieutenant Johnson did not survive as well. I – we," she threw a quick glance up at Ronon, "will always remember him with kindness."

Ronon's fingers tightened on hers. "I owe that young man a lot," he agreed softly.

"Yes, we do," Elizabeth echoed solemnly. John put a hand on her shoulder and sharply nodded once, his expression taking on that sober tightness it always got after the loss of an expedition member. Still looking at Teyla and Ronon, she reached up to cover his hand with one of her own.

"Hey, guys!" The sudden, high-energy intrusion of Rodney McKay into the cubicle fractured the somber mood. Teyla tried but was unable to suppress completely a reflexive wince. "The nurses said Teyla's awake—" He broke off as Elizabeth turned towards him, one hand half-lifted in a shushing gesture, and instantly looked horrified. "Oh, no— Don't tell me—" His voice dropped to a strangled whisper. "She's _worse_ again? When did _this_ happen?"

Out of compassion for the genuine distress in her teammate's voice, Teyla smiled at him reassuringly. "No, Rodney," she said, "I am awake. Carson even says I am doing quite well."

McKay's shoulders sagged in just as obvious relief. "Oh, thank goodness! You _are_ awake! And you look, um, great. Well, I mean, uh, maybe not great, you've looked a lot better, or maybe not a _lot_ better, but—" As if realizing his tact deficiency was showing, he broke off abruptly, seemed to cast about for something else to say, and blurted out, "So, how's your Spidey sense?" He snapped his mouth suddenly shut, going very red in the face as his eyes widened, making them appear even more prominent.

Above her, Ronon cleared his throat meaningfully, the sound very close to a growl. Teyla interposed swiftly, "Thank you, Rodney. But I do not understand your concern for my – Spidey – sense."

John seemed to be making a pointed effort not to turn and glare at the scientist. "We actually hadn't made it quite that far yet, McKay."

Detecting the grating note in his voice, Teyla quickly glanced at Elizabeth, just in time to see her face take on a studied blandness: her "diplomat's mask," as she'd heard John refer to it. At the foot of her bed, Carson stood looking down, his lips pressed together in a tight line. And Ronon's hand, still clasped in her own, was suddenly rigid with tension.

"My Spidey sense," Teyla repeated slowly, trying to comprehend their reactions. "That is what you and John call my ability to sense the Wraith." She looked around at them all again. For the first time, she noticed both John and Rodney wore their tac vests; and while she only had a clear view of the P-90 clipped to Rodney's, she knew from that fact that John would not be without his. Cold dread built inside her as she turned her head to focus her gaze on Ronon's lean waist. Now she was looking for it, she could see under the bottom edge of his shirt the shape of his holstered blaster riding low on his hip.

The pieces clicked together. Teyla shivered as she put the picture they formed into words. "You – believe – there is a Wraith – on Atlantis. And you—" _–Are going to hunt it. While I am bound here, unable to share the danger with you_. In spite of the old familiar panic roaring up inside her, she managed to seal her lips against the words, but could do nothing to stop her trembling. Everyone's eyes flashed to a point above and to the right of her. Embarrassment mingled with her anxiety as she realized the cause. Of course – she was still hooked up to monitoring equipment which, even though muted, betrayed her frantic heartbeat to everyone around her. Closing her eyes, she tried to will herself towards calm.

Nearby, Carson said briskly, "Ronon, Elizabeth, some help with these, please." A warm weight settled over her, quickly tucked around her by several pairs of hands: heated blankets. One pair lingered after the others withdrew. Teyla yearned for a moment simply to be able to yield to her desire for the comfort and security their touch conveyed even through the layers of wool. But she couldn't do that. She had to be disciplined, to be _strong_. Even as her body succumbed to the blankets' relaxing warmth, she drew on her deep emotional chill to fortify her resolve. With her inner defenses, though fragile as thin ice, once more in place, she lifted her eyelids.

One look into Ronon's green eyes, dark as they were with concern, nearly destroyed her inward balance. But she somehow managed to hold firm, determined not to shame him again with her weakness. "I – apologize," she said first to him, then to all the others hovering near her as she forced her eyes away from his face, "for distressing you. It will not happen again."

"No, no, no, it's _my_ fault, _I_ should be the one apologizing to _you_, Teyla, I have this big mouth and I tend to just _say_ things, I'm _sorry_! Really, _really_ sorry!" Rodney's words tumbled out in a rush, his expression totally and sincerely miserable.

"It is all right, Rodney." Teyla seized upon the welcome distraction of soothing the distraught scientist. "I assume I was to be told of this anyway, yes? Though I will confess I expected to hear about a human saboteur, not of a Wraith, being in the city. The shock simply caught me off guard and I over-reacted – perhaps because I have been heavily sedated until just recently."

"That's true," Elizabeth smoothly seconded Teyla's efforts to defuse the stress still vibrating in the cubicle, "we _were_ intending to explain our reasons for calling you and Ronon back from the mainland so close to beginning your wedding preparations." She shook her head and sighed. "I regret now we didn't take that decision earlier. If we had, you would both have been spared a great deal of suffering."

Teyla felt Ronon's gaze on her face, palpable as a touch. She knew he was skeptical of her explanation, even if he was keeping quiet about it. Without looking at him, she said, "I do not know yet _why_ you believe there is a Wraith on Atlantis. But unfortunately my Spidey sense also seems to have been affected by the medications I've received," she glanced at Carson, "because I do not sense its presence."

Beckett looked thoughtful, then nodded. "Aye, that's reasonable. After all the physical trauma you've had, then add the anesthesia plus all the painkillers pre- and post-op, it's likely you'd be a wee bit fuzzy about some things."

John grimaced and rocked on his heels a couple of times. "Well, then," he said wryly, "I guess we jumped the gun in more ways than one."

"It seems so," Elizabeth agreed. Teyla must have looked her confusion, because she went on to add, "He means we didn't necessarily need to overwhelm you with all this the very first time you regained consciousness. But you see," she briefly tipped her head sideways while making a rueful little face of her own, "we all just assumed you _would_ sense the Wraith as soon as you woke up."

"And you did not wish for me to be distressed. Thank you, it was a kind thought on all your parts. But I believe it has all turned out for the best." Teyla carefully drew the deepest breath she could, and took careful hold of the rags of her courage. Making the best attempt she could to sound tranquil and composed, and completely in control, she said, "I appreciate you being here – all of you – but I do not wish to hold anyone back from their duties. . . Though if she has the time, perhaps Elizabeth could fill me in on what has happened here in our absence." Only when the words were out did she dare to glance at Ronon to see if he detected her falsity. His face was utterly expressionless – except for the depth of the questioning pain in his eyes. Caught by it, she couldn't look away, despite the fear of what her own eyes might be betraying to him.

_Do not choose me_.

Though they remained unspoken now, the memory of those words hung in the air between them. Teyla remembered believing so _strongly_ when she'd first said them that her motives were right; noble, even. She'd intended them for a pledge of her intentions never to be something that now, more than a year later, she wasn't quite sure of anymore.

"Uh, Ronon," John said diffidently as the silence stretched out uncomfortably, "you know Doc Beckett really isn't happy about you going out on the sweep today. Why don't you sit this one out for another day – or two – or three? We've got it covered."

Ronon continued to look steadily into Teyla's eyes as he took his hands off the blankets wrapping her and straightened deliberately. He said tonelessly, "I'm good. We'd better be going."

The ice at the core of Teyla's heart expanded into her soul. She dropped her gaze to hide her own sudden, irrational hurt. After all, wasn't this exactly what she'd insisted he do? Surely she was strong enough – to hold herself together long enough –

"Okay." John spoke again, quiet authority replacing his former diffidence. "Guys, give me a minute with Teyla and Ronon. Alone, please."

Lost in trying to conceal her uncertain emotions, Teyla barely noticed as the cubicle cleared. But when John took the couple of steps necessary to bring him opposite Ronon, she had no choice but to look up at him.

"Look, kids, I only want to have this talk with you the _one_ time." Even though he kept his voice low, Teyla immediately knew it was Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard speaking now. "If I ever had any problem with the two of you getting married and staying on my team, this is it: One or both of you trying too hard to prove how you'll never put your personal feelings ahead of your _perceived_ duty or responsibility. I hope you noticed how I stressed the word 'perceived' – I did it for a reason." He paused, the intensity in his expression becoming even more focused. "Being too macho can screw things up just as badly, or worse than badly, than being overprotective. And yes, Teyla, I'm talking mostly to you. Do you really want _your_ 'tough guy' act to force Ronon into matching it, or having to always go you one better? Because that is _exactly_ where this is headed. And if it doesn't kill one of you first, or McKay, or me, it _will_ kill your marriage."

Teyla's inner chill spread to every cell in her body until she felt carved from ice. John's words stung her like blows from bantos rods. Many more, and surely she would be shattered by their impact.

Colonel Sheppard was looking only at her now, his thin face once again tight and solemn. "So while we're gone today, Teyla, I want you to take a really hard look at the choices you're making. Then I want you to ask yourself if they're really worth the price you'll pay if you keep on making them. No rationalizations; no glossing things over; just the bare, honest truth." He held her gaze for another long moment, as if to be absolutely certain he'd made his point. With a brief but commanding glance at Ronon, he jerked his head sideways before turning sharply on his heel and striding out of the cubicle. Ronon himself gave her an unreadable look and silently followed.

Teyla stared after them, too frozen by shock even to blink. Only gradually did the burning of her eyes penetrate her numbness enough for her to realize how painfully dry their surfaces had become. It took her an unfathomably long time to decide to close them, since the physical pain was so negligible compared with the emotional agony ripping her to shreds inside.

Time passed, a subjective eternity during which Sheppard's words echoed endlessly, battering Teyla into facing their truth. But just as with bodily pain, she discovered, neither was spiritual pain – even if so intense as to be beyond tears – infinitely sustainable. At some point there had to be a defensive shutdown. Eventually she lapsed into a state somewhere between the waking world and unconsciousness, where actual memory melded into symbolic dream.

_She knelt in front of the great doors to the Gateroom, Ronon lying dead in her arms. As before, he faded into nothingness within her desperate clasp, leaving only bloodstains to prove he'd ever existed. But when she turned frantically to look at the living Ronon behind her, he wasn't there. Instead, he was walking away from her, through the suddenly opening panels into the Gateroom._

"_Ronon!" she called after him. "Where are you going? Why are you leaving me?" When he didn't acknowledge her, she scrambled to her feet and followed, half-staggering. The blue shimmer of an active wormhole lit the immense space beyond. By it she saw he was moving steadily towards the Stargate, seemingly unaware of how unnaturally empty the room was._

"Ronon!" _The scream ripped out of Teyla's throat, and finally he halted, his head cocking slightly back over his shoulder. He slowly turned to face her._

_His body bore the same horrific wound that had just killed his future self._

_Teyla collapsed to her knees, gasping in shock. Ronon gazed at her silently, his strongly beautiful face extremely sad. Still without speaking, he took a step back away from her, and she realized she could dimly see the Stargate's rim though him: He was fading out, too. She whimpered a denial, a plea for him to stay. In silence, his eyes never leaving hers, he continued to back toward the event horizon as his figure grew dimmer and more ghostly, until there was barely enough left of him to cause a ripple as he stepped through the Gate._

_Teyla sprang up, hurling herself recklessly after him, screaming his name. The Stargate closed before she could reach it, taking its light with it and leaving her in utter blackness._

"Teyla." A familiar female voice spoke her name calmly but firmly. Hands too small to be Ronon's gripped her shoulders, holding her down against a semi-yielding surface. "Teyla, wake up and lie still. You're going to pull out your drainage tube and have to be taken back into surgery if you don't – _stop_ – this."

Teyla's eyes flew open. Breathing in rapid, shallow pants, she looked around wildly, almost expecting to see the Gateroom. As she slowly absorbed the reality of the infirmary, she yielded obediently to the pressure on her shoulders. Only then did she realize it was Elizabeth bending over her, her forehead creased with concern.

The other woman drew back slightly, watching her closely as she asked, "Teyla, has your pain gotten worse? Should I call Carson to check you? You were tossing around so much before I woke you, I'm afraid you may have dislodged something."

Feeling lost between her dream world and the real one, Teyla didn't answer at first. When Elizabeth lift a hand to activate her headset, she mustered enough coherence to say faintly, "No, please, I am—" –_fine_. Her voice failed on the last word, because it was a lie, albeit a polite lie, and she couldn't make herself say it. Her eyes filled with tears as, with difficulty, she admitted instead, "My physical injury does is not beyond bearing. But the pain of knowing how I have hurt Ronon, how I have failed him. . . And not just Ronon. I have disappointed Colonel Sheppard as well." She restlessly worked her arms within the disarranged cocoon of blankets, crossing them over her chest as if that would ease the pain consuming her from the inside out.

"Careful, Teyla, please be careful how you move. You really don't want to pull anything loose." Elizabeth quickly turned the blankets down halfway and untangled Teyla's IV line from them. Straightening the covers again, she left them untucked this time, allowing a little more freedom of movement, before she settled on the edge of the gurney. Careful not to shake it too much, she shifted her awkward weight until she could face her friend comfortably, and said matter-of-factly, "I know John has had some concerns about how you were coping with what happened. And I do think you hurt Ronon by seeming to push him away sometimes as if you don't really need him – oh, yes, John and I both have seen you do that, as recently as this morning. Even Rodney has noticed. But why do you think you've 'failed' Ronon?"

Teyla made no attempt to hide her misery as she replied, "Because I am not strong enough to – cope – as the rest of you are doing."

"Not _strong_ enough?" Elizabeth cocked her head as if startled, her eyes narrowing. "Teyla, you are one of the strongest people I have ever been privileged to know! Maybe you just expect too much from yourself."

Anger flashed through Teyla, temporarily negating her inner coldness. "How can I _not_ expect much from myself?" she demanded hotly. "I am the leader of my people. I must look out for their welfare, provide them with an example to follow—"

Elizabeth quickly shook her head at her, interrupting her. "I said 'too much,'" she corrected gently. Raising a hand to tuck a strand of her dark hair behind one of her ears, she sighed deeply before continuing. "I can only dimly imagine, you know, what it must be like to grow up in the Pegasus galaxy. For most of my life I thought it was bad enough growing up on Earth under the threat of nuclear or biological holocausts, energy crises, school or workplace massacres, sniper shootings, terrorist attacks— But _here_, knowing how at any time you, your family, your friends might be swept up in a culling; with little or no warning given, and no real way of protecting any of them from an unthinkably terrible death— And also knowing it's not just a possibility, but a virtual inevitability." She shook her head, slowly this time. "I'm not ashamed to confess to you I'm not sure how I would have responded to that pressure. Maybe, to protect my mental and emotional health, especially if I knew the kind of responsibilities I'd sooner or later have to carry, I'd strive to be as self-sufficient as I could make myself. And perhaps, even in my closest relationships, I'd try to hang on to just a little emotional distance – as a buffer against future loss."

Though Elizabeth's words lacked the stinging force of Colonel Sheppard's, they shocked Teyla no less. She said reluctantly, "You – are very accurate in your perceptions." Her shallow breathing quickened then as. No longer trying to deny anything to herself or anyone else, her next words burst fiercely straight out of the agony in her heart. "But how am I _supposed_ to 'cope' with knowing he has already died once to save _me_ from death? How to accept I may not be able to prevent him from doing so again? He cannot – he _must not_ – ever have to make that choice again! _I_ am the one who should be dead. _He was meant to live!"_

A long moment passed as Teyla's words echoed passionately between them. Finally Elizabeth's light green gaze lowered to her own hands, splayed over her stomach as if to protect and support the child she carried. Teyla's eyes automatically followed. Feeling suddenly remorseful, she gasped, then stammered, "Elizabeth, I am s-sorry, I d-did not mean— I was n-not implying—"

Elizabeth looked up quickly. "It's all right, Teyla," she said, smiling faintly. "I know you didn't mean it that way. You haven't said anything I haven't thought in regards to John and myself many, many times over – especially at night. The fact is, we _all_ were scarred by the timeline being changed the way it was. I know John is afraid I might die having this baby, with there being no way he can prevent it. He's never said so, of course. But he knows as well as I do women my age are _not_ supposed to be having their first child. And while my fears for my John are very similar to yours for Ronon," Teyla saw a shiver ripple through her, even though her face remained composed, "at least I didn't have to watch that other John Sheppard die."

Teyla worked her left arm, the one without the IV, free of the blankets and lightly rested her hand on the older woman's knee. "No," she said softly, part of her pain changing into sympathy for her friend as she remembered what she'd later heard of that other's ordeal, "you only had to listen while seeing in your mind's eye everything occurring with him. I do not think either of us had it—" she hesitated over the word "—_easier_ than the other."

The corners of Elizabeth's eyes crinkled as she tipped her head in acknowledgment. "All right, I'll concede to you on that. But I think in all of this, you have overlooked one very important fact." She laid a warm hand on top of Teyla's. "The John and Ronon who chose to come back in time had each lived through the death of _his_ Elizabeth, _his_ Teyla. Having experienced life without us, they decided it was worth whatever they had to do, even to the point of dying themselves, to keep _our_ deaths from happening." She leaned forward the slight bit her pregnancy allowed, her eyes glowing earnestly. "I struggled with that, Teyla. I've cried myself to sleep many times over it. It is humbling, even uncomfortable, to be loved _that much_. But," she squeezed Teyla's hand for emphasis, "it is also very, very glorious. And however difficult it makes things for you and me – after all, it _is_ their choice."

Unable to look away from the burning sincerity in Elizabeth Sheppard's face, Teyla sensed a tiny spark of answering warmth flare deep within her. "Yes," she said very quietly, thinking the words out even as she spoke them, "it is. And if I do not allow Ronon that choice, then I kill a great part of what makes him the man he is. I see now it would be an act of selfish pride, not of love, and our marriage would indeed not survive." She smiled tremulously, marveling at how her acceptance of that truth fed the thawing of her heart and spirit. "While it is true I have wasted much time and energy being unfair as well as unrealistic, I will not make those mistakes again – thanks to you and John."

"I'm very sure you won't." Elizabeth's smile turned impish, deepening the dimple in her cheek. "Besides, it does help us, knowing that our guys are _very_ good at what they do."

Teyla started to laugh, until a sharp reminder from her ribs made her decide against it. "Yes, yes. they are." She glanced down, then up again. Testing her rediscovered inner balance, she said, "So, do you have time to tell me about this Wraith Ronon and John are hunting? And what about the person who sabotaged our jumper? What exactly _has_ been going in the city while we were gone?"

"I may move back to my chair first," Elizabeth suited actions to words as she slid off the gurney. Wincing, she put one hand on her lower back while still supporting her abdomen with the other as she eased herself down. "We'll have to compare notes after you get pregnant – I really don't want to believe all these aches are solely due to my advanced age! Now then, where's the best place to begin? So much has happened in such a few days, it seems. . . By the time the lab exploded, we thought you were already safe on the mainland—"

_-To Be Continued-_


End file.
